Full disclosure, this is not one I know a great deal about, beyond vague memories of Lee Majors (The Six-Million Dollar Man) singing the theme tune ‘The Unknown Stuntman’. The Fall Guy was a 1980s action TV series starring a post-bionic Majors as Colt Seavers, a movie stuntman and occasional bounty hunter, Douglas Barr (The Unseen) as his cousin and apprentice Howie Munson, with Heather Thomas (Kiss of the Cobra) in the recurring role of fellow stunt performer Jody Banks.
As near as I can recall, it was a lot like other shows of its ilk, with Seavers and Munson travelling widely (in part for their stunt work) and taking on jobs to help out the needy and take down the corrupt, like the A-Team, but with the protagonists performing a wild stunt of the week instead of getting locked in a fully-equipped machine shop.
It ran for 5 seasons and a total of 113 episodes, and got adapted into a boardgame and a video game in the early 80s, so by some metric it must have been successful.
The Reboot
As usual, there will be spoilers. The film has a mystery element, so if you haven’t seen it and plan to, be aware.
A film based on the series has been in the works for almost fifteen years, with Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) and McG (Charlie’s Angels) attached to direct at one time or another, and Dwayne Johnson (Jungle Cruise) at one point in talks to play Seavers, before settling on Leitch and Gosling in 2020, with Blunt and the rest of the cast brought on in 2022.
Colt Seavers (Gosling) was one of the greatest stuntmen in the world, working mostly with action star Tom Ryder (Taylor-Johnson) and producer Gail Meyer (Waddingham). At the top of his game, and in the middle of falling in love with camera operator and aspiring director Jody Moreno (Blunt), an accident during a reshoot leaves him with a broken back and a crisis of confidence which makes him pull away from Jody and disappear into a hole.
Paul (Chalamet) and his mother, Jessica (Ferguson), work to be accepted among the Fremen. Some, in particular local leader Stilgar (Bardem), are quick to accept that Paul is a promised messiah, while others, especially the younger warriors, including Chani (Zendaya) and Shishakli (Yacoub), just see an outsider. Jessica is eager to exploit the mythology seeded by the Bene Gesserit, but Paul fears becoming the leader of a holy war that he cannot control.
Elsewhere, Princess Irulan (Pugh) watches her father, Emperor Shaddam (Walken), process the death of his friend, Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac, The Force Awakens), whom he ordered killed.
Directed by Paul King (Bunny and the Bull) Starring Timothée Chalamet (Dune: Part One), Calah Lane (The Day Shall Come), Keegan-Michael Key (Toy Story 4), Paterson Joseph (Aeon Flux), Matt Lucas (Paddington), Mathew Baynton (Bill), Sally Hawkins (Paddington 2), Rowan Atkinson (Johnny English), Jim Carter (Downton Abbey), Olivia Colman (The Mitchells vs. the Machines), and Hugh Grant (Four Weddings and a Funeral)
Willy Wonka (Chalamet), the oddly American son of a questionably Irish mother (Hawkins), seeks to make his fortune as a magician and chocolatier. Lacking the money for the big city, he is suckered into indentured servitude at the laundry run by Mrs Scrubitt (Coleman) and her heavy, Mr Bleacher (Tom Davis, Paddington 2). Trying to make money, he sneaks out to sell his chocolate, but runs afoul of a chocolate cartel run by Slugworth (Joseph), Prodnose (Lucas) and Finkelgruber (Baynton), and enforced by the corrupt chief of police (Key).
Directed by Kenneth Branagh (Dead Again) Starring Kyle Allen (West Side Story), Kenneth Branagh (Tenet), Camille Cottin (Stillwater), Jamie Dornan (Robin Hood), Tina Fey (Soul), Jude Hill (Belfast), Ali Khan (The School for Good and Evil), Emma Laird (feature debut), Kelly Reilly (Sherlock Holmes), Riccardo Scamarcio (John Wick: Chapter 2) and Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All At Once)
Hercule Poirot (Branagh) is living in seclusion in Venice, apparently after getting dumped by Salome Otterbourne (Sophie Okonedo in Death on the Nile) and growing his moustache back, with a bodyguard, Vitale (Scamarcio), to keep would-be clients at bay. He is lured out by novelist Ariadne Oliver (Fey), whose trademark detective was based on Poirot, with the prospect of debunking a medium. The scene for this case is the aftermath of a children’s party thrown by retired opera singer Rowena Drake (Reilly) in her home, a crumbling former orphanage haunted by ther ghosts of children who were abandoned during the plague, and the more recent spectre of Rowena’s daughter Alicia (Rowan Robinson, feature debut), dead by suicide and a broken heart. Also in attendance are the usual parade of potential victims/suspects: family doctor Leslie Ferrier (Dornan), haunted by memoires of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps; his precocious son, Leopold (Hill), who claims to hear the ghosts of the house; housekeeper Olga Seminov (Cottin), who lives in terror of the house; Maxime Gerard (Allen), Alicia’s ex-fiance, mysteriously invited to the after-party and seance; medium Joyce Reynolds (Yeo); and Reynolds’ assistants, Nicholas (Khan) and Desdemona Holland (Laird).
In a city-state defended by the Knights of Gloreth, each one a descendant of one of the founders of their order, Ballister Boldheart (Ahmed) is the face of change. The first outsider to train as a knight, the Queen hopes he will spearhead social transformation, but that hope is cut off – as is his arm – when he seems to assassinate the Queen during his knighting ceremony. Branded a villain, Ballister wants to clear his name – literally, having been dubbed ‘Blackheart’ following the incident – but the only person offering to help him is punk shapeshifter Nimona (Moretz), who seems more invested in increasing the general levels of chaos in the city.
Directed by Chritopher Nolan (Tenet) Starring Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later), Emily Blunt (Edge of Tomorrow), Matt Damon (Dogma), Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Florence Pugh (Black Widow), Josh Hartnett (30 Days of Night), Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody) and Kenneth Branagh (Death on the Nile)
Barbenheimer
After Warner Bros opted to release its 2021 slate direct to streaming on HBO Max, director Christopher Nolan criticised the decision and announced his intention to release his next film via Universal. Perhaps in an attempt to hit back at the director, Warner scheduled the release of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie for the same date as Nolan’s Oppenheimer, but whatever the cause, the juxtaposition of a comedy-drama based on a line of fashion dolls and a heavyweight biographical drama about the dawn of the Atomic Age caught the attention of the internet. In marketing terms, the goal was obviously for each film to draw market share from the other while largely claiming very different demographics. Instead, some mad genius came up with the idea of watching the two films as a double bill.
Throw in a pair of rollerblades, it’s basically the same movie.
Dubbed ‘Barbenheimer’, Nolan and Gerwig were both savvy enough to speak out in support of the idea, calling it a win for cinems and denying any idea of conflict. Even Tom Cruise jumped on the bandwagon, suggesting adding Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning to the slate. The resulting launch was huge, seeing crowded cinemas for practically the first time since 2020 and huge returns for both movies (although especially for Barbie, which ultimately left its dance partner for entirely credible dust,) as well as launching a million conflicting theses on which should be viewed after the other (I did Oppenheimer first, on the basis that it was more likely to be depressing.)
It didn’t work everywhere, mind you. The Japanese, who understandably have a different sensibility when it comes to nuclear weapons, felt that the comparison of the two topics trivialised Oppenheimer, and protested vocally when Warner tried to double down on marketing for the double feature. So it goes, and maybe that accounts for a part of the disparity between Oppenheimer‘s earnings and Barbie‘s, in which case chalk one back up for Warner’s marketing division, maybe?
But the movie, as a movie…
Oppenheimer
Over three timelines, we watch as physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Murphy) learns from giants of the field such as Nils Bohr (Branagh), meets his future wife Kitty (Blunt) and on-off girlfriend Jean Tatlock (Pugh) through friends in the American Communist Party, and goes on to lead the Manhattan Projecty developing an atomic bomb; as Oppenheimer faces a tribunal into his political activities after the war; and as AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss (Downey Jr.) faces a Senate hearing for his appointment as Secretary of Commerce, knowing that past political clashes with Oppenheimer have earned him the enmity of the scientific community.
Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos (directorial debut), Kemp Powers (Soul) and Justin K. Thompson (directorial debut) Starring Shameik Moore (Cut Throat Story), Hailee Steinfeld (Bumblebee), Brian Tyree Henry (Bullet Train), Luna Lauren Vélez (Ana), Jake Johnson (The Mummy), Jason Schwartzman (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), Issa Rae (Vengeance), Karan Soni (Deadpool), Shea Whigham (The Gray Man), Greta Lee (Problemista), Daniel Kaluuya (Black Panther), Mahershala Ali (Predators), Andy Samberg (Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping) and Oscar Isaac (Ex Machina)
Some time after the events of Into the Spider-Verse, Gwen Stacey/Spider-Woman (Steinfeld) is struggling with life on Earth-65. Her father, Captain Stacey (Whigham), is determined to arrest Spider-Woman for the murder of Gwen’s boyfriend, Peter Parker, who was killed when they fought after he took a mutagenic serum and became the Lizard at prom (as you do,) and she has been systematically alienting her friends as her mental state spirals. When an attack by the Vulture turns out to be the work of a Renaissance-themed version of the villain, she encounters Miguel O’Hara/Spider-Man 2099 (Isaac) and Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman (Rae), and when she is forced to reveal her identity to her father, persuades them and their AI assistant Lyla (Lee) to take her with them to join the dimension-hopping Spider Society (that Spider Society like ‘high society’ rather than the Spider Society.)
Directed by Willis O’Brien (King Kong, special effects) Starring Herbert M. Dawley, Willis O’Brien, Alan and Chauncey Day and Soxie the Dog
Author and explorer Uncle Jack (Holmes) tells his nephews (Day and Day) about an adventure he had with his partner Joe (actor unknown) and their dog (Soxie). After failing to get Joe to strip and pose as a faun, Jack finds a strange instrument in the cabin of deceased hermit turned ghost Mad Dick (O’Brien). Looking through this telescope, he witnesses various dinosaurs around the peak of Slumber Mountain. A Tyrannosaurus chases him, but then he wakes and it was all a dream. His nephews rightly beat the shit out of him for using such a hackneyed device.
Directed by Nida Manzoor (feature debut, two episodes of Doctor Who) Starring Priya Kansara (feature debut, Bridgerton), Ritu Arya (Red Notice), Nimra Bucha (English language feature debut, Ms Marvel), Akshay Khanna (feature debut), Seraphina Beh (feature debut, Eastenders), Ella Bruccoleri (feature debut, Call the Midwife) and Shona Bayembi (feature debut, Twelfth Night from Shakespeare’s Globe)
Ria Khan (Kansara) is a young, British-Pakistani girl who aspires to be a stuntwoman like Eunice Huthart. She posts demo videos on YouTube as she tries to master the reverse spinning kick, but while her sister, Lena (Arya) and best friends Clara (Beh) and Alba (Bruccoleri) are supportive, her parents (Shobu Kapoor, Mischief Night, and Jeff Mirza, What’s Love Got to Do With It?) and teachers all think she should pursue a more conventional lifepath. Ria takes heart from the fact that Lena is studying art, but after an Eid Mubarak party thrown by Raheela (Bucha), the queen bee of Mrs Khan’s social circle, is distressed to see her sister drifting away from art and sisterhood under a charm offensive from Raheela’s brilliant, impossibly manscaped son Salim (Khanna).
It begins, as so many things in animation did, with Shrek.
The year was 2001. The success of the Disney Renaissance looked to be secured by the work of Pixar, and pretender to the Mouse Throne, Dreamworks Animation, was struggling to establish itself. The fledgling studio flip-flopped between adult-oriented comedies (Antz and The Road to El Dorado) and worthy Biblical subjects (Prince of Egypt and the direct-to-video Joseph: King of Dreams) with mixed results, and had only achieved real success with their Aardman Animation stop-motion collaboration, Chicken Run. But 2000 had been a sobering year for Disney, with neither Dinosaur nor The Emperor’s New Groove achieving commercial success, and 2001 saw their attempt to pivot into more grown up fare with Atlantis: The Lost Empire miss its audience. Pixar would score another hit with Monsters, Inc later in the year, but by then Dreamworks had already struck gold with the rude, crude family fairy tale Shrek.
Openly taking shots both at Disney’s bread and butter subjects and at the corporation itself, and peppered with contemporary songs in place of purpose-written musical numbers, Shrek – starring Mike Myers (Wayne’s World) as the titular ogre, Eddie Murphy (Mulan) as his sidekick, Donkey, and Cameron Diaz (My Best Friend’s Wedding) as Fiona, a princess cursed to become an ogre by night – signalled a sea change in animation. Layering innuendo over fart gags over deep emotional nuance and heartwarming character moments, it embraced a whole-family audience by breaking every unwritten rule of what might be considered ‘suitable.’ As a result, it became the 4th highest grossing film of the year, and while Monsters, Inc was 3rd – the top two, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and The Fellowship of the Ring, similarly breaking accepted cinematic practice and ushering in the era of the purpose-built franchise – Atlantis didn’t get a sniff of the top 10. Whole new vistas opened out for animation, and the top of the field was now a two horse race.
The Franchise
Shrek saw its misanthropic lead become a reluctant hero and win the heart of Fiona, who became locked in her true form – that of the ogre – by true love’s kiss. Three years later, the sequel – Shrek 2 – brought the happy couple to visit Fiona’s parents (John Cleese, A Fish Called Wanda, and Julie Andrews, Mary Poppins) in the Kingdom of Far, Far Away. There, the Fairy Godmother (Jennifer Saunders, Muppet Treasure Island) schemes to marry Fiona to her son, Prince Charming (Rupert Everett, The Importance of Being Earnest). As part of this plot, Shrek is targeted by professional ogre-killer Puss-in-Boots (Banderas), a swashbuckling ginger tom who manages to become part of team Shrek in time for the big finale, which is unquestionably one of the greatest four minutes of cinema.
Puss remained a fixture in two more sequels – Shrek the Third and Shrek Forever After – and while for a time the franchise was Dreamworks’ most reliable hitter, by the time of Forever After, they had launched the Madagascar and How to Train Your Dragon franchises, and were only a year short of Kung Fu Panda. Dreamworks has long been a studio of franchises, and is probably in part responsible for Disney trying to push Frozen 3.
The First Spin-Off
Kitty Softpaws has had the proper instruction since she was six weeks old.
While Shrek was largely tapped out, it was decided that Puss-in-Boots had more to offer, and in 2011 – six months after Kung Fu Panda – he got his own spin off, a prequel to the Shrek films in which Puss teamed up with his childhood friend Humpty Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis, Operation: Endgame) and fellow feline thief Kitty Softpaws (Hayek Pinault). It shifted its setting to a kind of Spanish Western millieu, and Puss’s swashbuckling, musketeer aspect more towards an homage of Zorro, a role Banderas played a year after Shrek 2. It retains the fairytale backdrop of Shrek, with Puss and his crew seeking for magic beans in order to steal a golden goose, they just do a lot of it in the desert or surrounded by characters who share Puss’s accent.
The TV Series
“Yes, this is a hole, but if there were to be a movie sequel, it could become a plot hole.”
In the absence of a cinematic follow-up to Puss-in-Boots, Dreamworks Animation Television launched a TV spin-off in 2015 as part of a deal with Netflix. The Adventures of Puss-in-Boots was a prequel to the prequel, in which Puss stumbles on the hidden town of San Lorenzo and manages to un-hide it, thus becoming the town’s somewhat reluctant protector. Voice-over actor Eric Bauza (Space Jam: A New Legacy) does servicable work as Puss, with Jayma Mays (Bill & Ted Face the Music) as local do-gooder and slow-burn love interest Dulcinea. The cantina where Puss gets his belove leche is run by a Highland cow, which raises a lot of questions, and the series does rather leave one wondering where Dulcinea got to by the start of Puss-in-Boots.
The Late Sequel
All of which brings us to The Last Wish. Released twelve years after Puss-in-Boots and more than two decades after Shrek, Puss-in-Boots: The Last Wish is the first Dreamworks’ product to bear the Puss-in-Boots named and be set not only after the previous release, but after any other work in the Shrek franchise.
An older and more cynical Puss is enjoying the life of a living legend, but when a run in with the Sleeping Giant of Del Mar results in his death – his eighth death, leaving him but one life left to live – the town doctor (Mendez) recommends retirement. Initially dismissive, a run in with a terrifying wolf (Moura) leaves Puss shattered, afraid for the first time in his life, and he buries the legend and goes into hiding at the home of cat fancier Mama Luna (Randolph).
The Bad Movie Marathon 