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Movie review: Gosling/Blunt charisma rescues 'Fall Guy' – UPI.com

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Movie review: Gosling/Blunt charisma rescues 'Fall Guy' – UPI.com

1 of 5 | Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt star in “The Fall Guy.” Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures

LOS ANGELES, April 30 (UPI) — The chemistry between Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt powers The Fall Guy, in theaters Friday, despite a shaky script. Whenever they’re not on screen it becomes apparent the film is nothing without them, but they are in it enough to keep it fun.

Colt Seavers (Gosling) is stuntman to Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). When Tom insists on a second take of a stunt, Colt sustains a back injury and quits the stunt business.

18 months later, producer Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham) asks Colt to come back for the directorial debut of Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). Colt hasn’t called Jody since the accident, so their reunion is not smooth.

The ’80s TV series was about a stuntman turned bounty hunter, which makes sense for weekly adventures. The movie is more determined to showcase the profession of stunt coordinators and performers.

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Director David Leitch was a stuntman and his production company, 87 North Productions, is the elite in the industry. So it’s okay if the plot of The Fall Guy movie is a little thin to justify having fun with its homage, but then it should get to the fun more quickly.

Gail actually called Colt to find Tom, who has disappeared, without the studio finding out. The more charming story is the tale of a stuntman and director falling back in love.

The scenes between Colt and Jody are the strongest of the film, whether Jody is using a sci-fi movie’s plot to blatantly address their relationship or whether they are fighting in a case of mistaken identity. The film spends too much time on the Tom plot when it should be about Colt and Jody.

Since The Fall Guy is a comedy, the action outside the movie set leads to more jokes than danger. The film plays Colt as a goofball, not a cool action hero, for which Gosling is totally game.

Colt does use his stunt powers while investigating Tom’s disappearance. Since he knows how to get hit by a car and survive, Colt will literally stand in the way of an escaping suspect.

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Colt can use a staircase as a ramp to launch a vehicle during a car chase. The film’s climax on the movie set incorporates the stunt and pyrotechnic departments too.

It was a mistake to Intercut a good chase with a scene of Gail and Jody in a bar, thus ruining the energy of the action scene. But other moments, like Colt and Jody discussing the use of split screen while actually performing on split screens, are impressive.

Colt has almost as much chemistry with stunt coordinator Dan Tucker (Winston Duke) as he has with Jody. Dan helps Colt investigate the Tom mystery while they quote action movies to each other.

The fake titles of Tom’s movies sound believable, except they are apparently all originals and not based on pre-existing intellectual property such as The Fall Guy itself. The script rightfully calls out the fact that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences still refuses to add a category for a stunt Oscar.

The Fall Guy shows audiences how productions now scan actors and their stunt people so they can put the actors’ faces on footage of their stuntmen performing dangerous feats. So it’s a little disingenuous when the film purports to show closeups of Gosling in action when it explicitly showed how modern movies can fake that.

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A behind-the-scenes montage during the end credits does show Gosling’s double doing some of the major stunts from the film, and a few where it was actually Gosling being pulled on wires.

So, given that the mystery of Tom’s disappearance is slight and, without spoiling, only becomes more convoluted, it really should have been relegated to a background subplot. But, The Fall Guy doesn’t take itself as seriously as other movies with even more convoluted plots, so it amounts to more fun than not.

Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.

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Movie Reviews

Movie Reviews 2026: Ukrainian and World Premieres

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Movie Reviews 2026: Ukrainian and World Premieres

The world of cinema and TV series offers hundreds of premieres every year, but not all of them are worth the time spent. Viewers are increasingly looking not just for entertainment, but for meaning — stories that leave an aftertaste, make them think, or help them experience strong emotions. That is why reviews are becoming an important guide: they help separate truly high-quality content from loud but empty hype. UNN has reviewed the most anticipated premieres and selected films worth watching.

“Kakhovka Object” (war drama)

The film shows war not only as combat operations but also as a test of human dignity, character, and choice. Through the fate of the main character, the viewer sees how difficult it is to make decisions in extreme circumstances when every step can affect the lives of others. The director masterfully combines psychological tension with realistic details, creating an atmosphere of complete immersion. The film is not only about war but also about human responsibility, strength of spirit, and the ability to remain human in the chaos of events.

“Mavka. The True Myth” (romantic fantasy)

The premiere will take place on March 1, 2026. This is a continuation of the Ukrainian fantasy tradition, where national myths and legends come to life on screen. The film reveals Mavka’s inner world, her desire for love and freedom, as well as the conflict between the human and the magical. The animation promises to be bright and detailed, and the story is universal: it touches on the themes of choice, self-discovery, and responsibility for one’s feelings. This film will be a good example of modern Ukrainian animation, capable of captivating both children and adults.

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“When Will You Divorce?” (corporate comedy)

A comedy about personal life and work relationships that raises questions about the balance between career and personal feelings. The film humorously shows how easy it is to get confused in one’s own emotions, trying to satisfy the expectations of others. The authors successfully combined light life situations and ironic dialogues, which makes the viewing entertaining but not superficial. This film is for those who appreciate modern humor and recognize themselves or colleagues in the characters. 

“Odyssey” (epic adventure drama)

A large-scale adaptation of Odysseus’s travels after the Trojan War. The film shows not only the hero’s physical trials but also his inner transformation: courage, ingenuity, patience, and moral choice in critical moments. The artistic design and the use of modern technologies to create epic landscapes and battle scenes are impressive. The director managed to combine a classic story with a modern cinematic rhythm, which makes “Odyssey” not only spectacular but also emotionally deep. 

“Lord of the Universe” (sci-fi, action)

The film transports the viewer into a vibrant magical world where heroes fight for justice, and the line between good and evil constantly shifts. This is a story about courage, self-sacrifice, and responsibility for one’s own destiny and the destiny of others. The combination of special effects, a fantasy world, and an adventure plot makes the film attractive to a wide audience. But the main thing is not the effects, but the internal struggle of the characters, which gives the film depth and meaning.

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“Scream 7” (2026)

The return to the famous slasher franchise proved unsuccessful. Despite the direction of series veteran Kevin Williamson and the comeback of Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox, the film received mostly negative reviews from critics. 

Thus, 2026 promises to be a landmark year for Ukrainian and world cinema. Even with fewer premieres, there is a tendency towards a deep elaboration of characters, psychological conflicts, and moral issues, which makes modern films and series not only entertainment but also a way of understanding human life and the modern world.

“You Are Space” breaks records: Ukrainian sci-fi attracts over 326,000 viewers10.02.26, 21:04 • 6852 views

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Movie reviews reveal A Poet and All That’s Left of You dominate March with perfect 100% scores – Art Threat

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Two masterpieces just shattered critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes. Both A Poet and All That’s Left of You have garnered rare perfect 100% scores from critics, dominating March 2026’s excellence rankings. These dual releases represent a historic moment for international cinema.

🔥 Quick Facts

  • A Poet: 100% Rotten Tomatoes score from critics celebrating Simón Mesa Soto‘s Colombian drama
  • All That’s Left of You: 100% Certified Fresh multi-generational Palestinian epic by Cherien Dabis
  • Release Timeline: Both films expanding dramatically in theaters March 2026 after festival triumphs
  • Critical Moment: Rare simultaneous perfect scores elevate international storytelling into mainstream spotlight

A Poet Achieves Unanimous Critical Acclaim

Simón Mesa Soto‘s A Poet stands as one of 2026’s finest achievements. Starring Ubeimar Rios as Oscar Restrepo, a once-promising writer turned tragic failure, the film examines fatherhood’s weight with devastating wit and elegance. The Colombian-Swedish-German co-production premiered at Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section last year and has conquered every distribution market since.

The ensemble cast includes Rebeca Andrade, Guillermo Cardona, and Humberto Restrepo, delivering layered performances that anchor the film’s four-chapter structure. Critics hailed the film as a triumph of tone, mixing tragicomic observation with genuine emotional devastation. The New York Times called it “The Romance of Misery”, recognizing its ability to find beauty in human failure. The film’s philosophical depth and formal precision explain its unprecedented critical consensus.

Title A Poet (Un Poeta)
Director Simón Mesa Soto
Lead Actor Ubeimar Rios as Oscar Restrepo
Rotten Tomatoes 100% Certified Fresh
Theatrical Status Expanding in March 2026

All That’s Left of You Shatters Records as Palestinian Saga

Cherien Dabis wrote, directed, and starred in All That’s Left of You, a sweeping three-generational epic set in the Occupied West Bank spanning decades of family trauma and resilience. Featuring Saleh Bakri, Mohammad Bakri, Adam Bakri, and Maria Zreik, the film follows a teenage boy swept into a pivotal protest with consequences that ripple through his family’s future.

Produced by Watermelon Pictures, the film premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2025, where it immediately earned Certified Fresh status and near-universal praise. Filming relocated to Cyprus, Greece, and Jordan after production complications, yet the result feels seamlessly authentic. Critics point to Dabis’s multi-media mastery (she directs, performs, and produces) as essential to the film’s emotional authority. The film’s scope rivals the greatest epics while maintaining intimate character work that defines recent international cinema.

All That’s Left of You arrived in selected theaters on January 9, 2026 and steadily expanded throughout early March. The film’s 100% Rotten Tomatoes score reflects not just critical respect but genuine reverence for Dabis’s artistic vision. This achievement represents Palestinian cinema reaching its greatest artistic and commercial moment.

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Why These Two Films Dominate March 2026’s Conversation

Rarity defines these simultaneous perfect scores. A Poet and All That’s Left of You occupy the rare 100% Tomatometer tier reserved for films of historic excellence. The 2026 FilmFare recognized both as front-runners for major awards, acknowledging how they’ve elevated the expectations for drama itself. Industry observers note that achieving perfect critical consensus in today’s fractious landscape represents not consensus but unanimous recognition of artistic achievement.

Both films reflect cinema’s global moment. Simón Mesa Soto‘s Colombian vision and Cherien DabisPalestinian perspective prove that international storytelling now commands the cultural conversation. Rotten TomatoesOfficial Rankings place both films in its exclusive Certified Fresh top tier. March 2026 becomes the month cinema decided: universal critical acclaim belongs to filmmakers willing to transcend borders.

“All That’s Left of You is a sweeping multigenerational epic that captures the thematic breadth of great cinema while exploring what it means to endure generational trauma.”

Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus, Officials

The Future of International Cinema Starts Now

Both films expand to more theaters through March 2026 and beyond. A Poet hits streaming services and digital platforms simultaneously, making it accessible to audiences beyond Select Release cities. All That’s Left of You continues rolling out across regional markets, having already secured international distribution. Industry observers expect both to capture major festival awards at upcoming spring cinema celebrations.

These perfect scores matter beyond accolades. They signal to studios, streamers, and investors that audiences hunger for international voices and authentic storytelling. March 2026 becomes a watershed moment where Colombian drama and Palestinian cinema proved they belong in the conversation with any major market release. The critical paths of A Poet and All That’s Left of You forecast how cinema itself will evolve toward greater global representation.

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Where Can Film Lovers Watch These Perfect-Score Masterpieces?

Both films remain available in theatrical releases across the United States and expanding internationally. A Poet plays select theaters with plans to widen release through spring 2026, while All That’s Left of You continues broader theatrical circulation. Check major ticketing platforms for showtimes and streaming availability. International audiences should consult local cinema schedules for release dates and language availability. These 100% Rotten Tomatoes achievements deserve the big screen experience both directors envisioned.

Sources

  • Rotten Tomatoes – Official Tomatometer scores and Critics Consensus for both films
  • The New York Times – Critical analysis and reviews of A Poet’s artistic achievement
  • Watermelon Pictures – Official distribution and production information for All That’s Left of You

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‘They Will Kill You’ Review: Zazie Beetz Kicks Ass in a Giddy, Gory Eat-the-Rich Actioner

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‘They Will Kill You’ Review: Zazie Beetz Kicks Ass in a Giddy, Gory Eat-the-Rich Actioner

At the end of it all, a flabbergasted detective asks a survivor what’s just occurred. The victim, battered and exhausted and covered in blood, grunts out just two words: “Rich people.”

That’s about the extent of the social commentary on offer from They Will Kill You, a new action-horror-comedy set in a Manhattan luxury building whose Satan-worshipping tenants engage in ritualistic killings of their mostly poor and marginalized staff. But it’s all the excuse writer-director Kirill Sokolov (Why Don’t You Just Die!) and his co-writer Alex Litvak need to unleash great big arterial sprays with gonzo style, to enjoyably giddy, if ultimately insubstantial, effect.

They Will Kill You

The Bottom Line

Not a lot of brains, but plenty of splattered guts.

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Release date: Friday, March 27
Cast: Zazie Beetz, Myha’la, Paterson Joseph, Tom Felton, Heather Graham, Patricia Arquette
Director: Kirill Sokolov
Screenwriters: Kirill Sokolov, Alex Litvak

Rated R,
1 hour 34 minutes

Arriving just one week after Ready or Not 2: Here I Come hit theaters — and having first debuted at SXSW just a few days after Ready or Not 2: Here I Come did — They Will Kill You will inevitably draw comparisons. It’s impossible to argue they aren’t fair.

Both films are about ordinary women brought into a tightly guarded enclave of the one percent, where they’re to be hunted for sacrifice by entitled sociopaths who’ve struck a literal deal with the Devil. Both films saddle their heroines with estranged younger sisters who harbor lingering resentment about having been abandoned by their big sisters in their youth, but now must make up with them in order to survive. Both films devolve into frenetic yet stylish melees deploying all manner of unusual weaponry before, finally, confronting the supernatural head-on.

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But any assumption that they’re the same movie will be wiped out the moment the satin-cloaked Satanists of They Will Kill You corner Asia (Zazie Beetz), the newest maid at the exclusive Virgil apartments, in a closet — only for her to come out literally swinging with a sword, slicing one of their heads clean off to uncork the first of what will be many, many geysers of blood to come.

Asia, we learn through one of several flashbacks, is no oblivious victim but an “avenger,” as her boss (Patricia Arquette‘s Lily) puts it, with an irritated sigh suggesting she isn’t the first. Asia has come here under false pretenses with the intention of rescuing her sister, Maria (Myha’la), another recently hired maid. She’s thus armed to the teeth with blades and guns and ammo, though perhaps nothing is deadlier than her fighting spirit, honed over years of prison brawls. The residents of the Virgil, for their part, are more than ready to defend what’s theirs, with one major supernatural asset up their capacious sleeves that gives them the upper hand.

The simplicity of the plot — the only way out is a fire escape at the top of the building, forcing Asia to fight her way up its nine floors, á la The Raid: Redemption or Dredd — gives Sokolov a relatively blank canvas across which to splatter a grand and gory pastiche of seemingly everything he has ever found cool, from video games to animé to John Wick to Sergio Leone and Quentin Tarantino. If he’s yet to coalesce all those influences into his own distinctive style, he wields them with gleeful enthusiasm. He dials the violence up to Looney Tunes silliness while Beetz infuses it all with an effortless cool, giving Asia an athleticism that makes her a pleasure to watch and a defiance that makes her a joy to root for.

Asia never swings an axe when she can swing a flaming axe so that she can set her enemies on fire even as she hacks off their limbs. Furniture getting hurled through the air is captured in slow-motion, all the better to admire when it shatters on someone. Gunshots are punctuated by flurries of mattress stuffing falling through the air like snow. And I haven’t even revealed the big twist that accounts for the film’s most eye-poppingly gruesome sights; those, I’ll leave you to goggle at in the theater for yourself.

But even with that endless appetite for mayhem — and even with a trim 94-minute run time — there’s a point at which They Will Kill You starts to leave intriguing ideas on the table in favor of repeating itself. Take the layout of the building. We’re told each floor is themed after a different deadly sin, but aside from a brief glimpse of a writhing orgy on the “fuck floor” (Lust, obviously) and a set piece in an empty kitchen (Gluttony, presumably), we don’t get to see any of the others. Instead, we spend much of that time crawling around dark underground tunnels and climbing up nondescript shafts. It seems a missed opportunity to set the Virgil apart from any of a million hallways we’ve seen action stars punch their way through before.

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Then there are the characters. They Will Kill You barely bothers fleshing out its robed and masked masses of villains; the ones played by Heather Graham and Tom Felton are distinguishable only because they’re played by Heather Graham and Tom Felton. But it has not much more interest in key characters like Maria, whose motives shift with the needs of the plot. Or Lily and her husband Roy (Paterson Joseph), about whom I could tell you almost nothing beyond that Arquette seems to have decided halfway through the shoot to adopt a “local newscaster on St. Paddy’s day”-level Irish accent, and Joseph to pick up a gently Southern one.

Even its haves-versus-have-nots posturing turns out to be less about exploring social injustice than allowing us to root for ultra-violence guilt-free, secure in the knowledge that these rich actually are not like the rest of us because they are much, much, much worse.

But perhaps it’s for the best. For all the weapons in Asia’s arsenal, thoughtfulness or emotionality or complexity are nowhere among them. They Will Kill You is simply not equipped to serve up a nuanced exploration of class division, or a poignant drama of sisterly devotion, or what have you. What it is armed for is violence — lots and lots and lots of violence, so brutally nasty it comes all the way back around to childishly funny. That, it is happy to dish out in spades, with enough gusto to sate even the most bloodthirsty filmgoer.

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