Release: Stretch Armstrong

 

Stretch Armstrong

Genre: Action/Comedy/Sci-Fi

Director: Phil Lord & Chris Miller

Writer: Giovanni Garcia

Based on the action figure

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Adria Arjona, Michael Pitt, Angela Bassett, Ruth Wilson, Channing Tatum (cameo)

Budget: $115,000,000

Domestic Box Office: $90,079,662

Foreign Box Office: $54,109,949

Total Profit: -$71,990,745

Reaction: Not even Ryan Gosling's massive star-power was able to convince audiences to show up for a movie based on a toy that stretches. 

"Stretch Armstrong is a wildly inventive, high-energy blend of action and comedy that plays perfectly to Phil Lord & Chris Miller’s strengths. Ryan Gosling’s self-aware charm carries the film, balancing absurd humor with just enough emotional weight to ground the story’s identity crisis. The action is creative and kinetic, constantly finding new ways to use Stretch’s abilities, while Adria Arjona provides a strong counterbalance as the more grounded June. It’s chaotic in the best way—funny, stylish, and surprisingly heartfelt." - Evan Rist, The Neon Screen Review

"Slickly written and visually elastic, Stretch Armstrong clearly knows how to move, the problem is it doesn’t know how to laugh. The action is inventive and Gosling’s casting makes sense, but the film treats an inherently goofy toy premise with a straight-faced seriousness that feels oddly dated. What should lean into absurdity keeps reaching for weighty identity themes we’ve seen before. If it committed to the joke the way Barbie did, this could work. Instead, it politely stretches and snaps back to familiar ground." - Dexter Quinn, Cinematic Observer Newsletter

"While Stretch Armstrong is undeniably energetic and packed with visual creativity, it often feels like it’s trying to juggle too many tones at once. The humor lands inconsistently, and the film’s more serious themes never fully develop. Ryan Gosling is clearly having fun, but the supporting cast is uneven, with Michael Pitt’s Virox veering between intriguing and overly theatrical. It’s entertaining in bursts, but the film’s scattershot approach keeps it from fully coming together." - Colin Dreyfuss, Metro Film 

Rated PG-13 for sequences of action violence, suggestive humor, and some language.