Review of The Marine

As a wrestling fan, the big question is whether John Cena can be the next Rock. He had a very good presence on the screen and in the few moments of dialogue he was given, he came across very well. Unfortunately, the director of the movie ruined what was otherwise a passable script with a solid cast by over-relying on fake looking explosions, some impossible to follow fight scenes, and making his hero out to be a chump in the beginning of almost every fight he was involved in.

I grew up on these types of movies. I still look forward to watching Segal and Van Dam direct-to-video releases. I have even named one of pets Jean-Claude. I went into this movie hoping that John Cena would become the next great action star that this generation is sorely lacking but left really sad about how poorly this movie was executed.

The acting was the highlight of the movie as Robert Patrick (Terminator 2) proved once again what a talented actor he is. John Cena was also impressive in this movie. He was able to do the comedy and action that is a requirement for this genre.

The plot was very formulaic, but that is to be expected in this type of movie. The movie follows what I like to call Segal Plot 101: "The hero's family is put in danger by a gang, hero kills gang members one by one until getting to the leader, after beating the gang leader and thinking he is safe the villain makes one last bid to kill the hero but dies in the process, the cops finally show up when the credits start to roll."

The movie goes wrong right from the start when John has to save some hostages from Al Qaeda. The scene is impossible to follow and has many random explosions that somehow Cena avoids. That chain of events happens more times than I care to remember. In addition, John gets beaten up way too many times for an action hero. The other annoying thing is that you have to guess how Cena finally finishes off his enemies.

Overall Recommendation: Wait for the DVD