The first reviews for David Leitch’s “The Fall Guy” film adaptation are in and so far the reaction out of its SXSW premiere seems to be fairly gushing.
With 18 reviews counted, the film has racked up a 94% (8/10) on Rotten Tomatoes. As the film is not out until May, it’ll be a good few weeks before the majority of critics see it and potentially impact the score.
Ryan Gosling stars as a stuntman, fresh off an almost career-ending accident, who has to track down a missing movie star, solve a conspiracy and try to win back the love of his life while still doing his day job. Emily Blunt, Hannah Waddingham and Aaron Taylor-Johnson co-star.
Here’s a sampling of review quotes for the film:
“This is popcorn filmmaking at its most cheerful and enthusiastic, driven by cheeky needle drops, rousing action, and movie stars.” – Katie Rife, IndieWire
“The Fall Guy feels indistinguishable from the dozens of other action films. And then Gosling and Blunt start flirting and fighting and verbally feinting with each other, and you feel like you’re floating an inch above your seat.” – David Fear, Rolling Stone
“Two hours of zingers with impeccable timing, two bona fide movie stars with palpable chemistry, several enjoyably meta send-ups of the business and, of course, plenty of crazy stunts.” – Adrian Horton, The Guardian
“‘The Fall Guy’ is funny, it’s sexy, and it features the boy-toy version of ‘Barbie’ scene-stealer Ryan Gosling – which is to say, this time around, he embodies the ultimate action figure.” – Peter Debruge, Variety
“A blast of fun at the movies worthy of the biggest tub of popcorn you can find. It’s two hours of movie stars being absolute charm machines, and sometimes that’s all you really need.” – Matthew Jackson, AV Club
“For all its big set pieces (and there are, to be clear, many of those), this is an unexpectedly gentle picture, unafraid to put its star-crossed leads in a car at night for a quiet, intimate conversation.” – Bilge Ebiri, Vulture
“As it stands, ‘The Fall Guy’ is a wonderful movie about love and collaboration mashed up with an aggressively fine summer thriller.” – Matthew Monagle, The Playlist
“Very loosely based on the 1980s series, the film plays out over the course of nearly two hours without any fun, getting buried under empty gag after empty gag as it feels more like we ourselves are experiencing repeated head trauma.” – Chase Hutchinson, The Wrap
With no Marvel movie in early May, “The Fall Guy” is taking the start of Summer release slot and will open wide on May 3rd.