Down Under Flix

  The Fall Guy (2024) caps a trio of recent American productions with Antipodean elements. Like Anyone But You , it’s set in Australia, milks Sydney’s considerable production value, is headlined by two attractive actors, and prompted think pieces about the tenuous state of movie stardom. Like Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F , its direction—there Mark Molloy, here David Leitch—feels rather anonymous, despite The Fall Guy throwing an awful lot at the screen and wearing its designer eccentricities on its sleeve. I don’t doubt Leitch’s talent and ability to stage action, and admire his work on the original John Wick (uncredited) and Atomic Blonde , but of his subsequent films— Deadpool 2 , Hobbs & Shaw , Bullet Train —I struggle to remember any of the action beats delivered by one of our purported leading action directors. The Fall Guy features Ryan Gosling as a retired stuntman who returns to the fold when the movie star he previously doubled (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) goes AWOL. He’...

  A couple of months after watching Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F , I learned the film’s director was Australian. My earlier lack of inquisitiveness about the film’s director reflects a) the anonymity of its direction and b) Eddie Murphy’s default status as overriding auteur of the production. While Murphy has directed only one feature ( Harlem Nights ) and did not care for the experience, he's written numerous vehicles for himself and been the dominant authorial voice on many of his own projects. Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F is clearly a personal reclamation project, making up for the disappointment of Beverly Hills Cop III —largely of his own making—and of a piece with his other recent streaming-only releases (including fellow sequel Coming 2 America ), a stratagem—much like Adam Sandler—for maintaining the veneer of superstardom without testing box office pull in the marketplace. Lest I sound cynical, there’s a degree of thoughtfulness and pathos to the character etching in  Be...

  Going into Anyone but You (2024) , I expected to either be delighted by or despise the film. Thankfully, I was delighted. However, this apprehension reflects the baggage this film has accumulated, baggage well in excess of its dainty frame. For a movie as lightweight as Anyone but You , it’s become heavily and conspicuously entangled in ‘da discourse’ about 21st century movie stardom and romantic comedies, both routinely pronounced dead. The title of its Shakespearean source material, Much Ado About Nothing , proves apt to describe said discourse. Directed by Will Gluck ( Easy A , Annie , AACTA Award winner Peter Rabbit ) and scripted by Gluck and Ilana Wolpert, the film pits Ben (Glen Powell) and Bea (Sydney Sweeney) against each other as modern-day spins on Much Ado About Nothing ’s Benedick and Beatrice. Following mixed signals and miscommunications after a one-night stand, Ben and Bea are awkwardly reunited when Ben’s childhood friend (Alexandra Shipp) and Bea’s siste...