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Project Hail Mary

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I have been looking forward to Project Hail Mary for quite a while. I have heard so many good things about it, and I find Ryan Gosling to be extremely entertaining and a top level actor that it only served to increase my anticipation. I booked my tickets to the IMAX theater at Cinemark and went this morning.

People are right. It is fabulous.

According to IMDB, “Science teacher Ryland Grace wakes up alone on a spaceship light-years from Earth. As his memory returns, he uncovers a mission to stop a mysterious substance killing the sun, and save Earth. An unexpected friendship may be the key.”

The film is utterly gorgeous. It looks unbelievable and the special effects are jaw dropping. There is no doubt that Project Hail Mary is an early Oscar contender for the Best Visual Effects Award. I completely recommend seeing it in IMAX too. The bigger the better.

But the visuals are not the only awesome aspect of the film. Ryan Gosling was spectacular as Ryland Grace. He carried this film with every moment that he was on screen, which was practically the entire thing. We saw both the present and the past with this character and he provided us with an amazingly emotional ride right off into space.

I was surprised how funny this movie was. There was a wonderful use of humor and most everything really hit, comedically. Gosling has great comedic timing and he uses the quips and the moments to truly inform the character. I sure hope the Golden Globes do not put this in the Comedy category like they did with The Martian.

Phil Lord and Christopher Miller directed the film and their brand of sly humor came through brilliantly. Drew Goddard, who had also co-written Cabin in the Woods, wrote the script, adapting it from a novel by Andy Weir of the same name. This crew of creators brought such life to the story that it worked on all levels.

I enjoyed the way the story was told. It started off in the space craft with Ryan Gosling and then it would flashback to times when Gosling’s Ryland Grace was on earth and showed us as the movie progressed how Grace wound up in that ship.

I don’t want to go into spoilers, although a major part of the story has been revealed in trailers. I am still not going to talk about it, but this section was so great and infused this movie with such energy and power.

There were a couple of scenes in space that, I swear, I did not breathe during because it was so intense that I couldn’t stand it. They were done so well and brought that action energy to a film that felt like a slow burn at other times. It all worked together so well.

If you force me to criticize the film, it might be a little long. I think they could have shaved off ten minutes, maybe, but I did not feel the length during the viewing.

In the end, Project Hail Mary was a fantastic film with sci-fi elements that is a true crowd pleaser, filled to the brim with emotion and beautiful imagery. One of the best films of 2026 so far.

5 stars

The Fall Guy

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I am a person of certain age who actually watched The Fall Guy TV show on ABC back in the eighties with Lee Majors. It may not have been one of my most favorite shows, but I always enjoyed it. However, I would be lying to say that I thought the idea of making a full length feature film based on the show wasn’t a silly idea.

I have to say though that I really enjoyed the new film starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. I knew I was going to love this when Kiss’s “I Was made for Loving You” blared from the screen to start off the movie.

Directed by former stuntman David Leitch, The Fall Guy follows the life of stuntman Colt Seavers (Ryan Gosling), who disappeared after a brutal accident on set, and ghosted his girlfriend at the time Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). After a while, Colt returned to the film world when he was told that Jody wanted him to do stunts on her first, big-budget sci-fi/action flick. When that turned out to be untrue, Colt discovered the reason he was actually summoned back… to help find the movie’s main star, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) who had gone MIA.

The Fall Guy is just a lot of fun, filled with some great characters, some funny moments and a ton of breath-taking action, including a world record for number of times rolled by a car (8 1/2).

The biggest selling point for the film was the chemistry between Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. They were amazing together and, if there were any times where the film was slipping into camp, these two were able to provide the proper amount of pop. The dialogue between them was fire. They made a remarkable couple, one that you could absolutely root for as the movie continued to pull them apart.

The action was brilliant. The stunt work, which seemed mostly practical, was some of the best that we have seen in a movie in a long time. It was a variety of different types of stunts, but it was clearly a love letter to stuntmen and their contribution to the world of movie making.

The film was totally meta as well, as we saw a lot of the behind the scenes of a movie being made, especially from the perspective of the stunt team. The insanity of making a massive film like they were doing comes across with every back stage scene of the movie.

This movie is not perfect. It felt too long, at 2 hours and 5 minutes. I think it could have shaved off 15 minutes and been a tighter watch. Some of the sound mixing seemed off as there were some times where the dialogue was obscured with the background music. The final massive scene was kind of messy too, stretching some credibility.

The story itself is totally ridiculous, but it never took it too far. There is no doubt that there is a lot of silliness going on, but it felt more like a homage to the Fall Guy TV series and several ’80s movies that had obviously been an inspiration for this film. Most of the silly aspects of the script seemed to play well with the humor of the movie.

At first, I thought the story was jumbled and made little sense, but it really did take a turn and made everything that I was ready to criticize make perfect sense. It was actually pretty clever to how it worked out.

Winston Duke is great in his role as Dan Tucker, the head stunt coordinator on Jody’s movie and an old friend to Colt. Hannah Waddingham was fantastic as well as the over-the-top Hollywood producer who was backing the movie. And then there was the dog. The dog stole every scene.

I was hoping that there would be a remix of the original Fall Guy TV theme, which was recorded by Lee Majors, sung by Ryan Gosling. Part of my wish was granted as there was an updated version of the theme playing over the credits, but it was done by Blake Shelton, not by Ryan Gosling. It was okay, but I wanted another performance from Gosling.

The credits after the film included a ton of great footage, including a mid credit scene so stick around and watch them. It’s worth it.

In the end, I had a lot of fun watching The Fall Guy. There were some exceptional action, a lot of humor, some amazing chemistry between two of the most likable actors working today and a story that works itself out after a shaky start. Solid entertainment to kick off the summer movie season.

4.25 stars