Tag Archives: Dwayne Johnson

Movie Review: The Smashing Machine

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The new movie “The Smashing Machine” is a true story about a former Mixed Martial Arts champion Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) . This film is essentially comprised of 3 main parts. The first part is about the ridiculous sport of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), which has no real rules and comes down to two men falling to the floor on each other and beating each other in the head or the face using their hands or, in this movie, frequently using their knees to knock a man unconscious. While this “hitting the man in the head with your knee” method was considered a rules violation, it was still allowed in several fights during this story, because in this sport, there are no rules, other than perhaps eye gouging.

The second part of this story is about the relationship and constant arguing of Mark Kerr and Dawn Staples (Emily Blunt). During almost the entire time on screen, Dawn and Mark would drift from one insane argument after another. Too many times, these non-stop arguments were over nothing. One time, they even argued over a cactus plant. While these intense arguments did show acting ability from both Johnson and Blunt, seeing so many of them got old halfway through these two hours.

The third part of this story is about Mark Kerr’s constant abuse of pain killers, which included dangerous opioids that almost took his life and led him to rehab. The worst part of a story like this is how depressing it is that any human being would choose to be devoted to a sport that is so idiotic, and should have been outlawed years ago. Why is it considered entertaining to see two men fall to the floor and hit each other in the face and head?

There has been some buzz about the impressive acting of Dwayne Johnson in this movie and there are indeed some scenes that do show that he can act. Even though this movie is average at best, I believe Johnson will be nominated for a Golden Globe award and possibly even an Oscar, but the quality of this movie will probably prohibit him from winning either award.

I agree with the moderate 73% ratings for this movie on Rotten Tomatoes, but due to the ridiculous fighting scenes of a sport that should be banned, I do not recommend this film.

Netflix Movie Review: Red Notice

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When the movie “Red Notice” was released only in theaters last week, I wondered why it was only appearing in one theater out of many in my area. The reason is, that this movie is more of a cookie cutter, hashed together story based on about 10-15 movies that have already been made several times before.

I recognized “Midnight Run”, several “Mummy” movies, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and about 3 James Bond movies. Once again this is another example of a bad script that was made, for reasons unknown, and then somehow fell into production either by accident or total blunder. Then when it was too late – the thinking was, “lets throw 3 well known actors into this bad movie, and try to get our money back”. What is most unusual about Ryan Reynold’s acting career is that he seems to be the exact same soft talking sarcastic person in every role within movies like this. It will be interesting to realize when this finally gets too old and boring to continue.

Unfortunately due to the few theaters this film is playing in, and now after only a week its already on Netflix, the odds are high that this is a going to be a losing investment, even with Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot, in the starring roles. The other thing I noticed this time around, was that the 3 stars are all making huge efforts by going on all the late night talk shows to promote to try and save this mostly bad 2 hours.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for Red Notice are an extremely low 40% and I agree with this assessment and do not recommend this movie.

Movie Review: Jungle Cruise

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Some years ago, some Disney executive probably said, “Why can’t we combine the African Queen with Raiders of the Lost Ark?” From this one idea the odds are pretty high that the new movie starring Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, called “Jungle Cruise” was created. The problem is that this movie was probably made as a vehicle for two of the hottest actors right now, rather than writing a great story first and then getting the actors later. I could be wrong, but after seeing Jungle Cruise this sure seemed like the most likely scenario.

The start of this story seemed so familiar with the start of “Raiders Of the Lost Ark”, in this case there is a disease curing leaf of an impossible to find tree, somewhere in the jungle. Dr. Lily Houghton, played by Emily Blunt has to travel to the Amazon and rent a boat, captained by Frank Wolff, played by Dwayne Johnson. Once they meet, this entire movie is an excuse to create one action scene after another – and it all seems like we have seen this many times before. There is nothing new here, nothing memorable. This is not a bad movie, but definitely not a good enough movie to recommend, despite the special effects that at times were good.

I agree with the low 63% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and rate this film a pass.