The Marine (2006)

Who needs reality?

Welcome to the world of The Marine where John Cena unconvincingly plays a discharged marine who's wife is kidnapped by a bunch of ignoble diamond thieves. Welcome to the world of The Marine where our "hero" escapes death by fire not once, not twice but three times! Welcome to the world of The Marine where a woman can come between a hairsbreadth of escaping the clutches of the bumbling idiots who hold her captive AND STILL GETS CAUGHT! Welcome to the world of The Marine where men take punches that would knock Suge Knight out(what, too soon?) Welcome to the world of The Marine where stereotypical black men run around saying cliches like yep, you guessed it,"why it always gotta be a brother?". Welcome to the world of The Marine where bad guys couldn't hit the broadside of a barnyard with semi-automatic weapons. Welcome to the world of The Marine where our "hero" can get shot at and not get hit. Welcome to the world of The Marine where monosyllabic hillbillies with an irrational fear of cops reside in the bayou. Welcome to the World of The Marine where a women can get submerged under water for seven minutes and STILL LIVE! Welcome the the world of The Marine where cheesy one-liners run wild and a distinguished actor like Robert Patrick is at his worst. You get the drift.
The plot is weak, the action scenes are a joke and John Cena shouldn't be within a 3000 mile radius of a camera(he looks so constipated). This is the type of movie that The Last Action Hero made fun of. Ridiculous action scenes that defy all logic and the corny one-liners spouted in this movie makes the one-liners in Batman and Robin seem hip. Dont waste precious time on this movie. We're talking 92 minutes of pain and suffering. Your eyeballs will roll out of you head because you rolled your eyes so much at the sheer absurdity of this schlocky action flick. John Cena is right when he says that nobody cant see him. Nobody cant see him being a good actor after seeing unfunny action flick. Malibu's Most Unwanted should stick to wrestling. This is the worst WWE film ever made point blank period. May 15, 2008

Discharged

At least once a year, along comes a film that's so wrapped up in hype and promises of greatness that you know it can't be as good as its makers would want you to believe. The distinctive model of this for 2006 was "The Marine", the second feature of the newly-founded WWE Films, starring ex world champion John Cena. To state plainly, this is one godawful movie: a lame and poorly-written publicity project by Vince McMahon's sports entertainment empire that can't even be redeemed by placing it under the action/adventure genre. As a fan of both the WWE and action films, I was blown away by how uninteresting and unexciting the filmmakers could make this $23 million picture, considering that it was co-written by the same fellow who penned "Rapid Fire", "Spawn", and "Wrong Turn", and directed by a producer of WWE - a company that is built upon fast-paced action and excitement.

Let's start with the focus of this debacle - the star, John Cena. Though I feel apathetic about him as a wrestler, John Cena is most definitely not up to being an action hero: lacking the talent of Sylvester Stallone and Harrison Ford, the personality of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the moves of Jean-Claude Van Dam, the humour of Jackie Chan, and even the sincerity of character of Steven Seagal or Dolph Lundgren, Cena looks woefully out of place and confused amidst the explosions, gunfights, and combat fatigues, and doesn't even have any decent one-liners to his credit to make up for his lack of presence. Essentially, he's as bland of an action star as they get.

Mind you, this wouldn't really be that much of a problem if the film featured a strong enough supporting cast to make up for the star's deficiencies, but even here "The Marine" falls flat: Robert Patrick ("Terminator 2") as the film's wannabe-crazy villain and Kelly Carlson ("Player 5150") as Cena's spunky kidnapped wife are not really feeling the script at any point, and neither are the half-dozen or so supporting villains - including Anthony Ray Parker ("The Matrix") as a token black guy who alludes to being molested at summer camp for the sake of humour - most of whom kill each other before Cena can even prove himself by beating them up.

Even if we were to completely ignore the shoddy acting, there is little in either the storyline (Cena is a discharged marine whose wife is kidnapped by jewel thieves) or the action sequences to hold our attention. While the film nicely portrays the depression and "lost" feeling of a soldier who has just returned home from combat, and the "man-saving-wife" premise holds some lingering potential, the vast majority of the plot descends quickly into mundaneness, and focuses mainly on the group of villains stabbing eachother in the back and the pursuing Cena having to fight off hillbillies. The action offers absolutely nothing new or innovative: though the chase scene with Cena in the police cruiser is cool, it's a dim highlight amidst mediocrity that features standard gunfights, no martial arts, and more explosions that one expects can occur in the swamps of South Carolina.

In short, "The Marine" does not raise the bar at all above fellow panned WWE Films "See No Evil" and "The Condemned". If they want to be taken seriously in the realm of cinema, the writers of WWE will have to stop relying on cliché-driven pictures and name-recognition to be successful. After all, Cena's flick failed to make back its budget, as did Steve Austin's "The Condemned". Think outside of the box, huh? May 2, 2008

IT'S EXCITING!!!

THIS MOVIE WAS EXCITING AND INTERESTING. I LIKE ACTION MOVIES. THIS MOVIE WAS NON-STOP ACTION AND THE HERO WAS THE MARINE. HE'S PRESENT WRESTLING STAR I SAW HIM ON TV. HE'S A GOOD FIGHTER. I ENJOYED THE MOVIE. March 28, 2008

The Few, The Proud, The Marines

Oh boy, it seems we have a wannabe Rambo in the house! Seriously this is one of those movies that you gotta watch to laugh at. The movie does have a lot of action scenes,stuff blowing up, people dodging bullets. and none of them are realistic. The good thing this movie boosts is that it doesn't take itself seriously. It has a few of lame one liners, it even breaks the third wall in one scene


The movie tells the story of a recently discharged marine; he arrives home to begin a new life with his wife. They decide to take a road trip, have a good time together, but his wife gets kidnapped oh noo! Yeah so now Mr. Marine must save her. In the process he beats a lot of bad guys. Anyway it's an okay movie to watch when there's nothing on the teli

MY PERSONAL RATING: 2 OUT OF 5
March 20, 2008

Trail of Bodies

This film promised lots of action. It delivered. The numerous explosions made a great spectacle. Commercial director John Bonito helmed his first feature. He keeps the pacing going well. I had no clue who John Cena was, and wondered how he grabbed an action lead. After seeing the DVD extras of his wrestling career, I understand how he was cast and remembered him from channel surfing. His reactions are fairly wooden without many levels that we'd expect from a more experienced actor. But he gets an "A" for effort and completed many of his own stunts.

Robert Patrick who was the bad guy in "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and had a small part in Clint Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers" plays the bad guy Rome who engineers a bank heist. Patrick looks like he's smart enough to plan the caper, but has a screw loose enough to result in the chaos and trail of bodies.

Kelly Carlson from "Nip & Tuck" and many appearances on "CSI" plays Kate Triton, the wife who gets abducted. The brief love scenes looked like both actors were having fun and convinced us of a romantic relationship, although there wasn't much more marital emotional depth beyond that. She looked great.

Her female nemesis is played by Abigail Bianca who portrays the trigger happy gang moll with expertise. She excels at the action sequences. My favorite shot in the film is when she is flung through glass and diamonds are scattered, some of them red with blood.

The very best performance in the film, however, is one of the gang members named Bennett. Creatively named, he is played by New Zealand actor Manu Bennett. He seems to be the one in the gang with intelligence and emotional realism. His fight scene with John Cena is excellent. I was sad to see him bite the dust.

Overall, the film was about what I expected. Perhaps the acting wasn't quite as good as I'd anticipated. However, it picked me up in the action and carried me through swamps and explosions to the final frame. I enjoyed the DVD extra showing the film premiere at the military base with our fighting men and women. This is a good film for an evening's entertainment. Enjoy! March 12, 2008

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