The Rock

Fast & Furious 6

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Fast & Furious 6
  • IMDB: link

Fast & Furious 6When the sixth installment of the Fast & Furious franchise plays to its strengths (fast cars, good cinematography, beautiful women kicking butt, and some terrific action sequences) it works well. Sadly, we are also forced to sit through the franchise’s usual hamfisted attempts at dramatic tension and clichéd (not to mention extremely corny) dialogue which give us a mopey Vin Diesel for the first half-hour of the film and an inexplicable subplot involving Paul Walker in prison that doesn’t so much shit in the face of logic as refuse to exist the concept exists at all.

Director Justin Lin reassembles the team from the last film as Hobbs (Dwayane “It’s Okay To Call Me The Rock Again” Johnson) recruits Toretto (Diesel) and his drivers to take down a mercenary group of high-speed thieves attacking military targets. For Hobbs its about using the lesser of two evils to stop a greater one. For Toretto its about bringing a lost member of his family back home when Hobbs informs him that Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) is alive and working for the murderous leader (Luke Evans) of the group.

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Pain & Gain

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Pain & Gain
  • IMDB: link

Pain & GainBased on a somewhat unbelievable true series of events, Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne “It’s Okay to Call Me The Rock Again” Johnson, and Anthony Mackie star as a trio of bodybuilders who decide to kidnap and rob a local businessman (Tony Shalhoub). Played to the hilt, the insane over-the-top Pain & Gain embraces the ridiculousness of the situation to deliver some truly funny sequences. Sadly, it delivers almost as many groan worthy moments and some disturbing violence that doesn’t always mesh well with the zany tone of the movie. The true story the film is based on is so unbelievable director Michael Bay even stops the film at times to remind the audience that (some form of) these events really occurred.

The characters, who don’t seem smart enough to remember to breathe, aren’t even caricatures so much as full-blown cartoons. There’s a scene from Michael Bay’s first awful Transformers flick where a group of giant robots tiptoe around a suburban house hoping no one will see or hear them. That plan is near genius compared to those of Daniel Lugo (Wahlberg) and his confederates.

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G.I. JOE: Retaliation

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: G.I. JOE: Retaliation
  • IMDB: link

G.I. JOE: RetaliationFour years after the train wreck that was G.I. JOE: The Rise of Cobra, the sequel finally makes it to theaters after converting the movie to 3D and shooting additional scenes to cash-in on Channing Tatum‘s increased celebrity. G.I. JOE: Retaliation doesn’t prove to be worth the wait, but it’s certainly far better than the original.

For those of you unlucky enough to have witnessed the first film, you know that the terrorist organization known as Cobra had risen. Even if they had been defeated by the American special anti-terrorism force known as G.I. JOE, one of Cobra’s own, the master of disguise known as Zartan (Arnold Vosloo), had taken the place of the President of the United States (Jonathan Pryce).

G.I. JOE: Retaliation picks up some months later with President Zartan orchestrating the public disgrace and destruction of the JOEs while Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) and Firefly (Ray Stevenson) break Cobra Commander (now played by Luke Bracey) out of futuristic prison in an overly-elaborate plan.

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Snitch

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Snitch
  • IMDB: link

snitch-movie-posterSnitch is perplexing. Despite the promise of Dwayne “It’s Okay to Call Me The Rock Again” Johnson, plenty of action, and a poster that’s oddly similar to the The Rock’s last action flick, what writer/director Ric Roman Waugh and co-writer Justin Haythe deliver is a character study that’s short on action and a treatise whose true purpose is to lecture the audience on the the evils of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug-related crimes.

Despite being the most physically intimidating figure in the entire film, The Rock’s role is written as a upper-middle class suburban dad with little to no experience with violence. The Rock’s part seems obviously written for a schlub (Paul Giamatti would have made for far more natural casting). Choosing The Rock for a heavily dramatic role that doesn’t acknowledge, let alone make use of, his natural assets as an action star may allow the wrestler turned actor to broaden his breadth of work, but it’s just one of many odd choices Snitch makes during it’s nearly two-hour running time (which is about half-an-hour too long).

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Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
  • IMDB: link

journey-2-the-mysterious-island-blu-rayAlthough Journey 2: The Mysterious Island returns only a single character from 2008’s Journey to the Center of the Earth the sequel feels very much like a retread of the same adventure. Once again we get the teenager on a quest to find a lost family member with the help of an older authority figure in the middle of a Jules Vernian landscape come to life.

In an attempt to bond with his stepson, Hank (Dwayne Johnson) agrees to take a trip to find Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island after Sean (Josh Hutcherson) deciphers a code sent from his grandfather (Michael Caine) who went missing a few months ago. The pair enlist the help of a Pacific helicopter pilot (Luis Guzmán) and his daughter (Vanessa Hudgens) and soon the foursome find themselves stranded on the island no one, other than Sean, really believed existed.

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