“The Fall Guy” - A successful stunt.

Let’s jump right into it...The Fall Guy is an exceptionally fun movie. If you enjoyed Tropic Thunder and Bullet Train, put your hands together. If you didn’t enjoy those movies, well...maybe you just hate fun. The Fall Guy director David Leitch and writer Drew Pearce definitely like fun.

Depending on how old you are, you might remember The Fall Guy television show that ran in the early 1980s. I barely do. I remember that the main character was a stuntman and I remember his truck (mostly because I had the Hot Wheels copy of it). When the theme song started playing in the theater as the movie began, I found myself singing along with it, already starting to have fun.

(Very mild spoilers ahead.)

That stuntman’s name is Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling). On top of his game as the stuntman for A-list action star Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), he’s also working with the love of his life on a daily basis, camerawoman Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). When he suffers a near-fatal accident during filming, he disappears from everyone and his life, including Jody. Eighteen months later, old friend and film producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) tracks Colt down and convinces him to fill in as a stuntman in a movie called Metalstorm, goading him into it on the basis that the film is also Jody’s directorial debut. After wrapping up his first day on set, Gail pulls Colt aside and reveals that Tom Ryder has disappeared and she asks Colt to track him down.

When Gail tells Colt she believes Tom has gotten mixed up with drug dealers, the first question the audience asks is “shouldn’t this be a job for the cops?” In poorly written movies, this question is either completely ignored or answered in a way that makes you roll your eyes so hard your seat reclines. In The Fall Guy, the first question Colt asks Gail is “should you call the cops?” Yay! And the answer from Gail is logical and believable - “if the cops get involved, the studio will find out the movie is way over budget and missing its star and they’ll kill production and you wouldn’t want that to happen to Jody, would you?” Yay!

With that final bit of setup complete, the movie plunges right into why it exists in the first place - action, romance, and comedy in heaping piles of deliciousness. The action was the easy part. The Fall Guy being an ode to practical stunts and stuntmen, Leitch crammed as many practical stunts into the film as he could. Wild car chases, jumps to and from helicopters, fight scenes, shootouts, explosions, people set on fire, even a world-record breaking cannon roll (where an explosion causes a vehicle to roll multiple times). The best thing about the action is it all serves a purpose other than action for action’s sake. Sometimes it’s to move the romance plotline, sometimes it’s for the movie within the movie, and sometimes it’s moving the plot to find Tom forward. For anyone who complains about too much CGI, happy birthday.

The comedy part is just as good as the action. Sometimes, the action is also the comedy. In one scene, Colt is set on fire and blown into a large rock over and over again as Jody expresses her displeasure at Colt abandoning her after his accident. In another, it’s the fake weapons Colt and stunt coordinator/best friend Dan (Winson Duke) must wield to fend off some bad guys. And when the action isn’t providing the comedy, it’s provided by the actors, who are delivering wonderfully likeable and hilarious performances. You’ll be cackling at Taylor-Johnson delivering one of the big, climactic, inspirational, pre-battle speeches in his best exaggerated Matthew McConaughey accent, but not until after you nearly pee yourself during a split-screen scene between Blunt and Gosling. And all of this happens in the context of making fun of blockbuster movie productions, much in the way Tropic Thunder did.

Finally, there’s the romance, which is mostly an extension of the comedy, but elicits real emotions from the audience. While the relationship between Jody and Colt is presented as mostly light-hearted and airy, there are moments that come across as really genuine, even when the film is trying to keep the tone light. Go back to the scene with Colt being all-but tortured by Jody as she confronts his abandonment over and over again. She’s doing this to him in the form of shooting multiple takes of the scene, substituting her own emotions as her movie character’s motivations while directing the scene. Everyone involved in the scene knows what’s going on, even to the point of being supportive of doing the scene over and over again. Blunt portrays real hurt in Jody, Gosling portrays real guilt and sorrow in Colt, all while everyone is trying not to laugh as Colt is slammed aflame into a rock wall over and over. It’s brilliant and, yes, extremely fun to watch.

While there is still a load of movies left to see this year, I have a hard time believing any will be as entertaining as The Fall Guy (yes, I’m well aware Deadpool 3 is one of them). It’s a near perfect blend of great acting, clever writing, amazing stunt work, and just the right amount of self-awareness. I could have done without the forced cameos from Lee Majors and Heather Thomas that felt like an afterthought, but even the best stunt people don’t get everything perfect.

Rating: That much fun is worth double what you paid for it.

“Jungle Cruise” - A reel entertaining movie.

The Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland is one of the original attractions from when the park opened. it is filled with animatronic animals and shows every bit of its sixty-six years. Yet, inexplicably, it always has a long wait time because, well, I’ll have to get back to you on that one. For lack of a better option would be my first guess, but I think more people ride it out of pure nostalgia than anything else. And, you can tell who those people are because they are the ones forcing their children to wait in line while trying to convince them that it really is fun and so what if Galaxy’s Edge is right over there. No, really, it is. I promise. No, it isn’t that hot standing here. Yes, the San Diego Zoo is not that far away. We’re already in line, JUST BE QUIET!!

It was only a matter of time before Disney made a movie based on the Jungle Cruise ride. Pirates of the Caribbean was a smashing success (even if every movie after the original was not worth the price of admission). The Haunted Mansion was not a smashing success, nor was it at all apparent that the writers had actually ever ridden the ride. Even Tomorrowland, while not a ride, got its own film adaptation. There have been others, but we and Disney don’t like to talk about those (ahem, Country Bears). Considering the Jungle Cruise ride is less than thrilling, it would be an understatement to say that my expectations of The Jungle Cruise film were low.

For those people excited for by nostalgia, you’ll be happy early in the film. After an intro scene barfing opening narration all over us, we meet Skipper Frank (Dwayne Johnson) giving an Amazon River tour to a bunch of tourists. Frank’s tour hits nearly every beat of the Disney ride - hippos, snakes, attacks by indigenous people, bad puns. See, children? We told you it was fun.

What I like about that scene is that it gets the nostalgia out of the way right up front, then gets to the actual story. Remember that opening narration? There was something about conquistadors and magical healing leaves called Tears of the Moon. Dr. Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt) has spent years researching stories about the leaves and searching for information on where the leaves’ tree can be found. She convinces her brother MacGregor (Jack Whitehall) to come with her to South America to search for the tree. Once there, they hook up with Skipper Frank who agrees to guide them up the river, though not before attempting to talk Lily out of the expedition. You see, he’s been cruising the river for years and insists that if the tree really existed, he would have found it by now. Then again, he owes the local harbormaster (Paul Giamatti) a bunch of money, so off we go.

Every movie needs a good villain and the harbormaster is not that villain. Paul Giamatti must have been bored when he accepted the role because the harbormaster is a cartoon of a character that seems like he accidentally wandered onto the ride from another ride. He is barely in the film and, when he is, you kind of wish he wasn’t. The actual villain is Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons), a German lunatic who also wants the Tears of the Moon, but in order to take over the world. He is pretty much a cartoon as well, but one that is much more fun to spend film time with. Even more cartoonish is that he is travelling in a WWI German U-Boat (this film takes place during WWI), submerged most of the time no less. Don’t think about it too much and just have fun.

That’s what I did while I watched this film. I just let myself enjoy the film. Once it became clear that Johnson and Blunt were delivering their A-games, I knew I was going to at least be entertained, if not get a really good film. The two of them played really well off each other, as well as with Whitehall, who did a great job of not hiding behind the two stars. And, Plemons was clearly thrilled at the idea of getting to play an over-the-top villain with a German accent that all but oozed schnitzel. Plus, the story was decent as well, even though it felt a lot like a Pirates of the Caribbean sequel, but not sucky. Like all things Disney, there was adventure, happiness, magic, and bloodless death that tends not to really be death due to curses. For a ride as old and boring as the Jungle Cruise, this film was much better than any of us could have expected. But, I still won’t stand in line for the ride.

Rating: Make like a football coach and ask for a quarter back.

“A Quiet Place Part II” - Everything can hear you scream.

Since I did not write a full review of A Quiet Place, just noted it as arguably the best movie of 2018 in my year-end review, it is worth spending a little time here to talk about it before getting into Part II. A lot of horror movies are cheap, barely coherent films aimed solely at getting a couple of jumps or screams out of the audience. If they do that, they win. That cheap part is key, just look at The Purge series. Each of the four movies (with a fifth coming out soon) cost between $3-$13 million to make and each pulled in around $100 million at the box office despite the movies featuring almost no actors you have ever heard of and writing that, at best, can be described as words on paper.

(SPOILERS for the first film. If you haven’t seen it yet, go now, and be quick about it.)

A Quiet Place differed in three key aspects. The first is that it featured two well-known actors, Emily Blunt and John Krasinski. The second is that it was a well-written screenplay with an exceptional attention to detail (one of the writers was Krasinski, who also directed). The third is that it had a larger budget, though still inexpensive as movies go, at $17-$21 million. All three of those things as a group were crucial to the success of the film. While a larger budget for a horror flick is a great thing (they were able to hire Industrial Light & Magic for the creatures, rather than hope a couple of kids with MacBooks could do it for a couple thousand dollars and some lollipops), the key was two exceptionally good actors and that meticulously written screenplay.

The acting was notable in that the entire cast was six people, two of whom are barely in the film. Essentially, it was Krasinski and Blunt with a couple of kids (both of whom were also quite good) and a script asking them to deliver a convincing performance with virtually no spoken lines. Since the creatures in the film can hear the smallest of noises, the family has to do everything as silently as possible. This is where the amazing screenplay comes into play. In order to convince the viewer of the danger posed to the family (and all surviving people) and how they were able to survive for so long, we have to see and not hear everything they do. From their sign language, to the trails of sand they walk on in bare feet, to the sound-proofed basement, to the lights used for signaling, to the sheer terror and desperation in the actors’ eyes, face, and bodies whenever so much as a mouse farts, everything in the sets, acting, and production design conveys a singular purpose - shhhhhhh.

The entire film is done so exquisitely that the audience unconsciously becomes part of the film, not daring to make a sound lest we become the next victim or betray the family’s position. When Lee (Krasinski) hears that toy space shuttle break the silence in the opening scene, the terror in his eyes is palpable and we clench in anticipation of what he is so afraid of. While most horror flicks hope for a couple of scenes of great tension, A Quiet Place succeeded in creating an entire film of great tension. It isn’t until the film is over that you realize your fingers are two knuckles deep into the armrests.

A Quiet Place is also the kind of movie that makes you dread a sequel. For one thing, you are worried that you cannot handle that level of tension for another two solid hours. For another thing, trying to recapture the magic of a movie like this is almost always a fool’s errand. This time, the audience knows what is out there. This time, the audience knows the family has a way to fight back against the monsters. And when it comes to monster movies, sequels almost always try to double-down on the monsters. Super-hearing in the first film? How about we give them the power of flight in the second film? Also, they are twice as big. Oh, and they can breathe under water. If not this movie, then they can when this becomes a trilogy.

This is where a great talent like John Krasinski comes in handy. For the sequel, he is the sole credited writer, directs again, and is even in a prologue scene depicting the first day the creatures attack. While this first scene is a fun nod to the audience who all wanted to know where the creatures came from, the rest of the movie is shown the same amount of care and meticulousness as the first film. And if you were worried about the sequel curse, Part II isn’t a traditional sequel that happens sometime in the future, often with different characters. Once that prologue scene is over, the film cuts to where we left Evelyn (Blunt) and her kids at the end of the first film. And I do mean the exact moment we left Evelyn, standing there with a shotgun.

With Lee gone, Evelyn and her three kids (including their newborn infant) set off to find a new place to survive. They soon come across an abandoned factory and have to run for their lives when Evelyn trips a tripwire and Marcus steps in a bear trap. Quickly, daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds) sets up their one defense against the creatures (a speaker and her hearing aid, which make a screeching noise). Watching this occur from within the factory is Emmett (Cillian Murphy), a friend of the family, and fellow survivor who lost his family to the creatures. Seeing them kill one of the creatures, Emmett dashes out to help them and we are treated to another harrowing scene in which the humans use a combination of luck and environment to survive the attack. And like with the entire first movie, your hands are knuckle-deep in your seat.

While recovering from the bear trap, Marcus comes across a radio station playing music on a radio in Emmett’s hideout. Regan concludes that the music is a message to survivors and decides that she is going to locate the source of the music, taking off on her own without Evelyn’s or Emmett’s knowledge. The rest of the film plays out this plot and continues on like the previous film and this film - very little spoken dialogue and an intensity that rarely dips below nine. Emmett goes after Regan and they must survive multiple encounters. Evelyn and Marcus must survive more encounters. A couple of new human characters are discovered and more encounters must be survived. And every bit of it as intense as the last film and none of it feels rote or less urgent.

Have I mentioned that this film was really good? It was really good. It is one of the few sequels that manages to be as good as its predecessor and shows that sequels don’t have to escalate from the first film to be good. It also helps that Part II got a massive boost in production funds ($61 million), kept its cast small, and featured two very good actors carrying the film. It is the perfect film to usher us back into theaters, especially since the audience unconsciously stays as quiet as possible. Because you never know what might hear you.

Rating: Do not ask for any money back and apologize for poking holes in the seats.