Image courtesy of www.impawards.com
Director :
John Bonito
Cast :
John Cena……….John Triton
Robert Patrick……….Rome
Kelly Carlson……….Kate Triton
When watching Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson before he left professional wrestling to become a movie star, one could see the makings of a leading man in just his sheer presence in the ring. As one of the faces of the last golden period of the “sport,” Johnson’s charisma and size made him an easy pick to make the leap from the ring to the silver screen. With his career path in film still unsettled as he tries to establish himself in Hollywood, it’s interesting to see the WWE try and make another movie star from one of their top-billed wrestlers in current WWE Champion John Cena.
Cena stars as generic action hero John Triton in The Marine. John and wife Kate (Kelly Carlson) are on a bit of a road trip. Having stopped to fill up with gas, bad guy extraordinaire Rome (Robert Patrick) kidnaps Kate and leaves her husband for dead in an explosion. He’s just completed a masterful diamond heist and needs her as leverage; what he doesn’t plan on is Triton’s quest to rescue his spouse.
Filled with all the usual sorts of challenges and fight scenes that come with the genre, from the previews alone The Marine is a throwback to the peak of action films in the 1980s much like how Cena’s pro wrestling character riffed on rap music’s origins early on. This is a film that has the look and feel of an action film in the Commando era of action movies; Cena is the sort of “one man army” that Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren and others perfected for box office success 20 years ago. No matter what is thrown at Cena, it’s understood early and often that he’s going to save the day and trump the bad guys. It’s formula and it works for a reason, so the key to this film is looking at what it does with the formula itself. The Marine, then, rests its fortune on three things: Cena’s charisma as a leading man; Patrick’s ability to chomp scenery as a bad guy; and the film’s ability to keep things simple at a brisk pace.
Cena the action hero isn’t as far fetched a statement as it seems. While he has a ways to go to match the sort of screen presence provided by action heroes of the past, or even to hold court with “The Rock,” Cena’s physical presence is enough to compensate for a lot of his acting deficiencies. He looks and acts the part of an unstoppable warrior, giving him much needed credibility, and his All-American good looks make him an easy fit for the part. It doesn’t hurt that he doesn’t have to do much more than say a couple one-liners and engage in some heavy action, as the film wisely plays against using his limited acting chops as a crutch, Cena’s ability to use an intense stare and his inherent athleticism to the part make him passable at this point.
It’s interesting to compare a relative newcomer to the movie to a seasoned professional like Patrick. Chomping scenery as often as he can, Patrick takes what should be a relatively thankless role as the bad guy in an action sta’s debut movie and imbeds Rome with a calculated evil that instantly puts sympathy towards Triton. While the film isn’t written strongly enough to provide him the shot at competing with Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber in the annals of cinematic villains, Patrick’s underrated abilities help the film move forward. Rome is a generically evil man, so nothing he says or does stands out significantly on its face, but Patrick provides a spark into the character that makes the film interesting, to say the least.
The plot itself can make or break the film, so to look at it with any sort of critical eye means one has to look at it in terms of how effectively it adheres to convention. This is, after all, an action film and as such there are certain plot devices and mechanisms that are required out of the film. The film provides everything necessary to be enjoyable, but the problem is that The Marine is the sort of film that would be more appropriate in 1986 as opposed to 2006. Besides some fancy camera tricks and some impressive pyrotechnic work that weren’t available 20 years ago, the action film has evolved considerably since the days of Arnold. As such a film like this, which is laughably bad at times, doesn’t adjust in the way recent films like Crank, The Transporter series and other films that have used influences from Europe to Hong Kong in the evolution of the genre. Most of what happens, from Cena diving out of buildings moments before they explode to villains emptying magazines without a scratch on the hero, stinks of action film past. While it isn’t necessarily a bad thing if handled with a certain tongue-in-cheek nature, the film plays it as serious as Shakespeare and as such it becomes laughable during several key moments. The film’s finale, predictable from the very beginning of the film, has an ultimately comic aspect to it as opposed to a dramatic one it aims for.
Ultimately The Marine is an attempt by Vince McMahon to try and duplicate the success that Johnson had with The Scorpion King by bringing the same format to another muscle-bound star. The difference is that, for all its flaws, Dwayne Johnson’s feature debut was intended for an audience that has evolved past the days of Hulkamania. Coming off as a retread of films that have long since outlasted their welcome, The Marine is inferior on nearly every level as an action film. While Cena has the physical presence to be able to anchor a much better film, The Marine is the sort of film Jean-Claude Van Damme might’ve done instead of a sequel to Bloodsport. While this might’ve been a big break for someone like Cena way back when, right now it stands as a testament that some formulas don’t work forever.
