We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.
THE FALL GUY (2024)
Back in the ‘80s and possibly the early ‘90s, I would watch episodes of the ABC TV series The Fall Guy while staying at my maternal grandmother’s house. Created by Glen A. Larson, that show followed a stuntman named Colt Seavers, played by Lee Majors, who worked as a bounty hunter when he wasn’t on movie sets... and I loved it when I was a kid. I haven’t watched an episode of The Fall Guy in probably thirty to thirty-five years (I have watched the opening title sequence on YouTube several times), but I enjoyed it so much when I was little that I have carried a fondness for it through the decades. Whenever I would hear a reference to The Fall Guy, I would think something like, “That show was awesome.” So I was interested when I heard that it was getting a big budget film adaptation. Especially since one of my favorite modern actors, Ryan Gosling, was attached to play Colt Seavers.
Directed by former stuntman David Leitch from a screenplay by Drew Pearce, the movie The Fall Guy is described as being “loosely based” on the ‘80s TV show, and could sort of be seen as a “first adventure” type of story for Colt. He’s not yet working as a bounty hunter, but he is a stuntman – and he is given a mystery to solve as the film goes on. At the start, he’s the double of choice for Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), one of the biggest stars in the world, and is building a romantic relationship with camera operator Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt)... But then he breaks his back doing a stunt and leaves not only his profession behind but also Jody.
Eighteen months later, Colt has recovered and he gets a call from Tom Ryder’s producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham), who is working with the star on an action film called Metalstorm – inspired by the ‘80s Charles Band production – that’s filming in Australia with Jody at the helm. Gail says Jody wants Colt to do stunts for the movie, so he quickly makes his way to Australia... only to find that Gail lied and Jody doesn’t want him around, since he broke his heart. Gail actually brought him to the country to search for Tom, who has gone missing after running into trouble with drug dealers. So Colt sticks around to find Tom and hopefully win back Jody in the process.
Pearce crafted a fun script for this movie, mixing an entertaining complicated love story with an intriguing, twisty mystery that reminded me of not only ‘80s TV shows but also classic action movies – and at times was particularly reminiscent of the works of Shane Black, who Pearce collaborated with on Iron Man 3. It had me thinking of Lethal Weapon, Lethal Weapon 2, The Last Boy Scout, and especially, since Gosling starred in it, The Nice Guys. But, being a modern movie with a budget of around $130 million, it has much larger action sequences than were possible back in the ‘80s.
Leitch’s previous directing credits include the first John Wick (where he went uncredited), Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, Hobbs & Shaw, and Bullet Train, and an issue I had with a few of those is that he tends to go too wild and over-the-top with some of the action. There are moments where that happens in The Fall Guy as well, but thankfully most of the action is down-to-earth enough that you can appreciate the stuntwork that went into it. That’s important because The Fall Guy has been described as, and definitely is, a cinematic love letter to the stunt profession. That are some great stunts on display in this movie, and Leitch even provides a behind-the-scenes look at them with a video that plays during the end credits.
I don’t remember the original The Fall Guy clearly enough to be sure how well the movie matches up to the source material, but I know I had a blast watching this film, so it’s certainly no insult to what came before. Lee Majors and Heather Thomas from the original show also make mid-credit cameos, so that was nice to see. This delivered exactly what I wanted from it: a good, fun action movie that’s reminiscent of the classics while featuring some modern-style action sequences. I know the movie’s box office numbers were weaker than hoped for, its worldwide box office of $129 million fell short of its budget, but if the studio were to greenlight a sequel anyway, I would be happy to see Gosling and Blunt come back for The Fall Guy 2.
ABIGAIL (2024)
Vampires will probably draw crowds of movie-goers in again someday, but 2023 and 2024 have not been the years for their comeback, despite the best efforts of Universal Pictures. They released two separate Dracula movies in 2023: the violent comedy Renfield and the more directly Bram Stoker inspired The Last Voyage of the Demeter, and it didn’t really work out for them. Renfield made less than $27 million at the global box office. The Last Voyage of the Demeter barely cracked $20 million. This year, they teamed with Ready or Not, Scream (2022), and Scream VI directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett to bring us a film that was originally going to be called Dracula’s Daughter but ended up being titled Abigail – and this one didn’t set the box office on fire, either. It did make almost $40 million, though, so at least it did better than last year’s Dracula movies.
Scripted by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick, Abigail centers on a group of characters who are all basically scumbags, even if there are attempts to make us like and understand some of them. Played by Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Will Catlett, Kathryn Newton, Kevin Durand, and Angus Cloud, they have all agreed to kidnap a little girl named Abigail (played by Alisha Weir) for a man named Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito) and hold her captive in a mansion while waiting for her father to pay a $50 million ransom. We don’t learn their names, as they’re referred to by codenames based on members of the Rat Pack or people who were Rat Pack adjacent: Joey, Frank, (Don) Rickles, Sammy, Peter, and Dean. But we know they’re willing to kidnap a little girl, so that means they have some bad stuff coming their way. You just don’t usually anticipate things to get as bad as they do for this group.
If you know going in that Abigail was once called Dracula’s Daughter, you know exactly what’s going to go wrong in this situation. But it you never knew of the Dracula connection, the filmmakers took their time building up to the horror twist. For the opening stretch, it seems like they were just trying to make this come off like a crime movie before switching into vampire mode, following in the footsteps of From Dusk Till Dawn. The opening stretch of Abigail just doesn’t work nearly as well as From Dusk Till Dawn did before the vampires entered the picture. The pacing is slow, the picture is dark, Abigail was really starting to feel like a dull viewing experience to me. Finally, 36 minutes into the movie, one of the characters gets attacked and the rest of the characters realize they’re trapped in the mansion. Then, 49 minutes into the 109 minute movie, Abigail finally reveals herself to be a vampire. And for me, the movie finally became fun to watch.
There’s a good amount of fun to be found in the remaining hour of Abigail, including some oddball moments where the title character shows off her ballet skills and moments where Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett show vampires exploding from being staked or hit by sunlight. The movie does eventually start to feel like it’s going on for too long, but for a while there I was totally on board with what was going on... which at times felt like a vampire variation on Night of the Demons.
Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett assembled a strong cast for the film, with Barrera following them over from their Scream movies and this being a solid follow-up to Freaky and Lisa Frankenstein in the horror side of Newton’s career. Teenager Alisha Weir is just getting started in her career – and judging by the awesome performance she gives in this movie, she appears to be on her way to great things.
If you’re in the mood to see some bloody vampire action, Abigail delivers. It just makes you wait a while for it.
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