Good riddance! But what shall come of Metal Storm? This is why we sit around until the very end of the movie, folks. When the final cut of the film is previewed at Comic-Con, it’s revealed that Jason Momoa has stepped in for Ryder. And he does “space cowboy” a lot better. Towering, muscular guys with beards just suit dusters and cattleman hats.
It’s a great gag, preceded by an earlier, very funny reference to Momoa’s Mamoa’s Momoa’s name being misspelled no matter how many times you write it down. Furthermore, it embodies precisely what a cameo should be: a tasty, enjoyable garnish as opposed to a main meal. See, you’d be forgiven for experiencing some level of cameo fatigue in the Marvel movie era, where twisty inclusions — be it of comic book movie actors of yesteryear that people hold dear, or characters from said comic books that haven’t yet transferred to screen — have lost their crucial sense of surprise.
Take Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, which teased its group of super-cameos, including Patrick Stewart’s MCU debut in his fan-favorite role of X-Men‘s Charles Xavier, in pre-release marketing. Ultimately it seems that Marvel didn’t have enough confidence in the Doctor Strange sequel blowing up the box office without giving up the goods. For the most part, though, cameos lose their impact without the rug-pull. That’s why, with Spider-Man: No Way Home, Marvel were so canny to hide its returning Spider-Lads Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.
The Fall Guy unveiling its Momoa-eo on the lead up to its release isn’t likely to crank up the cash returns, with respect to Duncan Idaho, but that shouldn’t be the point. The point, in this case, is that it’s an additional gag. You come away from the movie simultaneously impressed that they managed to recruit an actor of Momoa’s caliber for a 30-second throwaway scene, and more cinematically nourished, like you’ve gotten more than you bargained for. The movie gets it right with its other major pair of cameos, too: Lee Majors and Heather Thomas, the stars of The Fall Guy in the ’80s, appear as cops in a reverent nod to what came before.
Altogether, it’s like throwing chocolate raisins in with your bucket of popcorn. It might not be what you’re diving in for, but it definitely makes for a much more satisfying experience.
