Tag Archives: the rock

Fast & Furious 6

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fast 6 poster

Director: Justin Lin

Writer: Chris Morgan

Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, The Rock, Luke Evans

Tomatometer: 72/78/95 (all critics, top critics, audience)

Spoiler-free Summary: Now retired from a life of street racing and crime, Dominic Toretto’s crew is recruited, by The Rock, to help track down a new crime syndicate that bears a striking resemblance to their own.

Two Cents: Fast & Furious 6 benefitted greatly from a scheduling conflict that could have proved deadly.  Released the same day as The Hangover Part III, Fast 6 found itself in a battle for sequel supremacy.  Despite the plethora of similarities between the two movie, Fast 6 beat Part III to a bloody pulp at the box office ($117 million to $50 million) during their shared opening weekend.  It doesn’t happen often in Hollywood, but, this time, quality won out.

I know, you probably think I’m crazy for using the word “quality” to describe a Fast & Furious movie.  But, I dare you to watch this movie and ask yourself this simple question.  Yes, it’s completely unrealistic, and The Artist had more dialogue, but this movie has some of the most exhilarating action sequences I’ve ever seen, as well as some surprisingly funny comic relief from supporting characters.

Between the insanely sexy cars, Paul Walker, The Rock’s arms, Jordana Brewster, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, Elsa Pataky, Gal Gadot, and Paul Walker, this movie has some serious eye candy.  It also has Paul Walker.  However, this movie is not all style.  There is an unexpectedly decent storyline here, and it connects nicely to the previous films in the series.  Don’t worry about the storyline too much, though, if you’re not up-to-date on the series, as the film begins with a Ferrari-fast recap of the important elements from past installments, and there isn’t much you need to know.  Boy likes girl, girl dies.  Boy likes girl, girl has scary brother.  Multiple boys and girls drive cars and steal things.  That’s pretty much it.  Not only does the movie begin with the best series recap I’ve seen in a film in a long time, it also finishes with a fantastic teaser ending (though, not quite as awesome as my favorite teaser ending of all time), promising more glorious fastness and furiousness in the future.

Should I/Shouldn’t I: If you’ve been a fan of the Fast & Furious series, then you simply must see this movie ASAP.  If you haven’t seen any of the previous installments, don’t let that stop you.  This movie is so darn fun, you don’t even have to learn the characters’ names.  If you’ve seen some of the movies, there’s no need to see them all (although, you’ll like most of them, not including Tokyo Drift), but you should probably see Fast Five, just to familiarize yourself with some of the newer characters.

Sundae Rating: Two scoops with whipped cream

Pain & Gain

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pain gain pic

Director: Michael Bay

Writer: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Pete Collins (based on magazine articles by)

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, The Rock, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, Ed Harris, Rob Corddry

Tomatometer: 48/49/61 (all critics, top critics, audience)

Spoiler-free Summary: Mark Wahlberg, a body-building fitness fanatic, develops an obsession with being a “doer”.  Unfortunately for Mark, his idea of being a doer involves kidnapping and robbing millionaires.  In hopes of completing his self-assigned mission, Marky Mark recruits a team of less-than-intelligent sidekicks, including Anthony Mackie, The Rock, and an objectively attractive performance artist.  Okay, she’s a smokin’ hot build-a-stripper.

Two Cents: In the words of a late-night talk show host after Nate Ruess’s band performs on his show: That was fun.  These days, few people truly stand for something.  Sure, Barack Obama stands for healthcare reform, and Justin Bieber stands for high-top sneakers, but no one stands for anything the way Michael Bay stands for mindless fun.  No, his movies haven’t been legitimately good since The Rock, but it’s scientifically impossible to walk out of a Michael Bay movie without a smile and a desire to blow something the hell up.

Pain & Gain is a true story, but you won’t believe it.  In fact, during one of the more entertaining sequences in the movie, Bay quickly pauses the action in order to remind the audience that the story is, in fact, a true one.

Mark Wahlberg is a pretty decent actor, but there was no need for him to show off his acting skills in this movie.  All he had to bring was his glistening pair of guns.  If you were wondering why Mark’s sleeves were holding on for dear life at the Oscars, now, you know why.  As the leader of the Sun Gym Gang, Mark does a masterful job of combining of brazenness, stupidity, and taking oneself way too seriously.

Anthony Mackie is dependable, as always, and The Rock is FINALLY doing exactly what he was born to do.  The Schwarzeneggerness of the three main actors is as awesome as awesome gets.  The Rock is so physically perfect, I am 83% certain that he had his old football pads implanted beneath his skin.  If I didn’t firmly believe that anyone using it deserves a punch square in the face, I would be tempted to use the word  “ridonculous” to describe The Rock’s arms and chest.

Rob Corddry, Ed Harris, Rebel Wilson, and Ken Jeong do a nice job filling out the supporting roles, but Tony Shalhoub is quite surprising.  After three dozen seasons of Monk, which were viewed by seven people, Shalhoub built a persona of being kind and awkward.  In this movie, however, he gets downright repulsive as the Sun Gym Gang’s first target.  Tony’s philosophical discussions with His Rockness are particularly entertaining.

Should I/Shouldn’t I: Take off your fedora, your indoor scarf, your summer-only winter hat, and your bow tie and sit your ass in a movie theater.  If you have the ability to admit that you like to be entertained in a non-ironic way, then you should see Pain & Gain.  It’s not a good movie.  It’s just not.  Still, the story is remarkable, and the movie is a Paula Dean-sized helping of fun.  Do you like muscles?  Do you like laughing at stupid people?  Do you like comedy?  Do you like hot strippers who have no logical place in a story, but manage to pop up quite often, anyway? Of course, you do!  Personally, I only like that stuff ironically, but that’s only because I’m cooler than you are.

Sundae Rating: Two scoops

Snitch

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snitch

Director: Ric Roman Waugh

Writer: Justin Haythe, Ric Roman Waugh

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Barry Pepper, Jon Bernthal, Susan Sarandon

Tomatometer: 54/54/81 (all critics, top critics, audience)

Spoiler-free Summary: The Rock has a son.  His name is Pebble.  Pebble, like many teenagers, is stupid enough to think teenagers can be trusted.  Unfortunately for Pebble, the person he trusts most, his best friend, Craig, is a drug dealer.  The thing about drug dealers is they often have questionable morals.  I know, right?  Who knew?  Anyway, Craig is a douche, so, he frames Pebble in order to cover his own ass.  Lucky for Pebble, his estranged father is ready and willing to help, especially if it means keeping his son from becoming someone’s girlfriend in prison.

Two Cents: With so much buzz surrounding Hollywood during the months of January and February, many people are unaware of the fact that the movies that get released during the first sixth of the year generally suck more than a turkey baster.  In the dead of winter, movie theater screens are filled with dreck that studio executives distribute early in the year, in order to make sure that those lines in their Power Point presentations have nowhere to point but upward.  Slick move, Ari Gold.  Also, they know there’s no point in releasing a decent film until March, because moviegoers use their January and February weekends to catch up on all of the Oscar-nominated pictures they haven’t yet seen.  Now, you understand why movies like Snitch get made.

I’m a fan of movie stars.  I find it comforting to know that certain actors (a term that includes actresses) will keep popping up on screens, whether they deserve to or not.  That phenomenon gives us common-folk a chance to become familiar with certain actors, watch them grow, and feel as if we are along for the rides that are their respective careers.  However, I’m also a fan of type-casting, the tendency for actors to get pigeon-holed into playing a small range of roles for long stretches of time, in numerous productions.  For example, Will Ferrell always plays the unreasonably arrogant fool.  He’s great at it, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  That’s why, even when he does a decent job in something like Stranger than Fiction, he keeps getting pulled back into projects like Anchorman 2.  Few actors have the ability to break their “type” and change the trajectory of their careers.  I, for one, am excited to see if Bradley Cooper’s Oscar-nominated performance in SIlver Linings Playbook allows him to avoid a lifetime of playing the funny douchebag.  Only time will tell.

Unfortunately for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, most of the executives in Hollywood believe in type-casting, as well, and Johnson’s work in Snitch isn’t going to change any of their minds.  I love a good unlikely-hero-comes-to-the-rescue thriller, but I’ve always believed that the hero in such movies needs to be someone whom most people wouldn’t actually expect to save the day.  Remember how Nicholas Cage dominated life in Con Air?  That is exactly what I’m talking about.  He was a quiet, nervous family man surrounded by a dozen tough-as-nails thugs, yet he built up the courage to take control of that plane and save the gosh-darn day.  In Snitch, The Rock tries to come off as a similarly decent, keep-your-head-down-and-work-hard family man.  When stuff starts to hit the fan, he doesn’t rip off his shirt and start throwing dudes over mountains, rather he plays the vulnerable hero, who is only motivated by his love for his son.  Not a bad way to go, if his character were being portrayed by, say, Liam Neeson.  However, when the only guy in the room standing over six feet tall and benching over 300 pounds is also the only guy in the room with a puddle next to his shoes, you know someone has made a casting error.  If that same guy also still has a long way to go before he can safely be referred to as an actor, you’ve got an even bigger problem.

I can’t say I hated this movie, because it did provide me some entertainment.  I just didn’t connect to the main character, because I didn’t find him believable.  I also found the Rock issue to be exacerbated by what I call “and-casting”, the practice of placing currently popular/famous actors in the lead roles of a movie, then filling out the bit parts with formerly popular/famous (and well-respected) actors in order to give the film more legitimacy.  In other words, after they list all the lead actors during the opening credits, they’ll finish the role call with “and Paul Giamatti” (The Hangover Part II) or “with Julie Christie and Peter O’Toole” (Troy).  And-casting can be a real treat, when it brings an already impressive cast up another notch.  When the lead actors are not carrying their weight, however, and-casting doesn’t hide those flaws, rather it puts them squarely in focus.  The film would have been far better served had Susan Sarandon and (the under-appreciated) Barry Pepper been cast in lead roles, as opposed to their  inconsequential, supporting ones.  (Oh, by the way, producers, Benjamin Bratt is not worthy of an “and”, or even a “with”.  He’s just a guy.  That’s it.)

Should I/Shouldn’t I: When you see a movie that stars a man who calls himself “The Rock”, you want to see that guy kick copious amounts of derriere.  You won’t get that in Snitch.  The story doesn’t make up for the lack of action, either.  If you’re a fan of Johnson’s, you’d be better off waiting for Fast & Furious 6, which is probably going to be more fun than a barrel of monkeys.  If you’re in the mood for an action flick that involves drug dealers and family men, there are a few of those out there, as well.  Try the Bad Boys movies.

Sundae Rating: One scoop