Dwayne Johnson. Better known as The Rock. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Need I say more? I know: I don’t. The Rock speaks for himself, often in the third person. But I’m going to anyway. Because Hercules is finally upon us.
I don’t even need to see the whole movie to tell you it’s going to be amazing. How can it not be? It’s a movie about Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson acting like he’s Hercules. He doesn’t even need to be a good actor for his performance to be stellar. The Rock already is Hercules, insofar as a modern-day professional wrestler-turned-actor can resemble a statuesque Greek legend from ancient times. The real question here is why it took this long for Hollywood to put two and two together and finally. It doesn’t even take a director as experienced and talented as Brett Ratner to help us realise this; all one really needs to do is point a camera at the guy and let him be himself. Or, at least, be The Rock.
Let me revisit some highlights from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s film career to better remember what brought him to this moment:
The Mummy Returns
Johnson’s first big role outside of his wrestling career was as a half-villain, half Deus ex Machina plot device in this 2001 Brendan Fraser-lead Indiana Jones tribute. Casting The Rock as an unintelligible half-naked warrior who later turns into a half-man, half-scorpion monster painted with some truly awful early 21st century CGI was pretty much the perfect way to introduce the man to the non-WWE watching universe.
The Scorpion King
The Rock revisited his role from The Mummy a year later in a spin-off origin story. The movie didn’t really succeed in its mission to turn the film series into a proper franchise. But it was also the first time The Rock was handed a true leading role. People started to notice his potential.
Walking Tall
Johnson truly came into his own on screen in this 2004 masterpiece about The Rock solving a small town’s problems by hitting them with a gigantic piece of wood. Walking Tall stands up as one of his best movies to this day. It also provides a fascinating window into the man’s unique approach to being an action movie star: whether he was playing a hero or a villain, The Rock realised he could win audiences by borrowing some of the bizarre, over-the-top swagger that he brought to the ring during the glory days of his WWE career. But he also began to temper it with a genuinely earnest do-good persona as well.
Doom
This is a terrible movie based on a legendary video game series. The treatment of its source material was abysmal, borderline offensive. The only — only — redeeming quality the film has is it gave Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson an excuse to whisper the phrase “big fucking gun” in anticipation as he gazed upon the glory of the BFG 9000.
Also, one more point before we (hopefully) never speak of Doom again: rewatching the film for this article made me realise what I think was its fatal flaw. It cast Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, but didn’t make him the Doomguy. Why on earth would you anybody think that was a good idea?
Snitch
This is a weird, overwrought movie in which The Rock plays a dad who’s forced to begin working as an undercover informant in order to reduce his son’s criminal sentence after he’s arrested for holding a friend’s drug stash. It’s like Breaking Bad, if Breaking Bad was a movie where Walter White was played by The Rock and wasn’t very good. It showed the very clear limits of The Rock’s acting ability when he tries to play a straight-faced serious role in a film also trying to convey a serious sociopolitical message. Directors, take note: that is not what Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is good for.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation
G.I. Joe succeeds where Doom failed. Because this movie realised that The Rock is, essentially, a real-world version of the iconic action figures on which it is based, and played up his superhuman persona as a result. He has a rocky start at the beginning of the film when he’s joking around with with his best bro and fellow Joe Channing Tatum. Once the movie gets down to its silly action sequences, however, The Rock hits his stride. It’s not quite as good as Transformers, that other modern Hasbro reboot. But it’s pretty darn good. That being said, I’m left wondering if G.I. Joe, much like Doom, would have had a better shot at reaching Transformers-level stardom if it had put Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in more of a central role from the beginning of its reboot.
Pain & Gain
Speaking of the awesomeness of Transformers, is there any surprise that director Michael Bay managed to bring out The Rock’s greatest theatrical performance to date? Many of Bay’s detractors have derided this movie as the blockbuster-friendly director’s weak attempt to make an offbeat movie in the style of the Coen brothers, given that its a self-aware darkly humorous movie about a heist that goes terribly wrong. Once again, these critics are wrong. Sure, Bay doesn’t have as firm a handle on things like “subtlety” and “humour” that the creators of Fargo do. But that’s what makes this movie so great — it’s borrowing their style, but applying it to the rhythm and bombastic tone of a director who uses screen-filling, city-block-destroying explosions as an essential colour in his (admittedly limited) palette. Pain & Gain uses The Rock the same way that Transformers uses Optimus Prime: it plays up the character’s inherent ridiculousness to truly bizarre, comic proportions. In doing so, Bay also manages to bring out deeper emotions from Dwayne Johnson than I ever thought possible. This is an eccentric, excellent movie, and much of that is thanks to The Rock.
Now: Will Hercules overcome Pain & Gain as The Rock’s best movie? I don’t know, but it certainly has all the right ingredients. I will go into the movie theatre this weekend with my fingers crossed, and report back to you with what I find.
Picture: Sam Woolley
Comments
22 responses to “A Salute To The Rock, The Most Wonderfully Absurd Actor In Hollywood”
Must also mention Faster which was awesome. Plus Be Cool and The Other Guys where he was pretty much the best part of both movies
Jesus christ how the hell could you miss his role in BE COOL? I mean the movie wasn’t that great sure, but Dwayne Johnson OWNED that movie 100% as the gay bodyguard role. He was the single best thing about it. He’s one of the few wrestlers turned actors who has succeeded beyond words. After he finished, he did a year of acting classes, which has actually paid off for him, given he doesn’t have a completely wooden delivery (unless the script is pure ass like the F&F movies (I still love them to bits, but still…) ) He then dove into doing family comedies, which were *awful*. His manager at the time advised him to shirk his old wrestling image, to rebuild himself a Hollywood visage. This failed miserably and he almost bombed out *completely*. The Rock fired his manager at the time, recruited someone else, got back into the WWE with their advice. The minor action roles such as The Other Guys and Faster started coming along and then Vin Diesel happened along with Fast Five. His career has been soaring since then. He deserves his success because he’s been working like a motherfucker to earn it. I might not like wrestling much, but I respect the hell out of Dwayne Johnson, you can see the effort he puts into everything he does.
And there’s this which just speaks mountains about the man 🙂 :
http://weknowmemes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/the-rock-playing-patty-cake-with-a-2-year-old-girl.jpg
And for popular demand, his best moments from BE COOL!
Sir, I gift you all of my internets
To be fair, it’s a tight run between him and Andre Benjamin in Be Cool, a really, really close race. They were both fantastic. 😀
The Deshaun bit really cracks me up lol
The gun on the tea cup was brilliant.
I liked Vince Vaughan as a wigga too.
The man is indeed good at what he does.
So much hype, but so bitterly disappointed that you forgot about “be cool”.
Man, I will never forget the scene where he’s dressing in the cowboy gear and slaps his ass. That was so goddamn hilarious. lol
“yeah… I was just walking into this strip club and….”
Edit: oh and that monologue from bring it on. Holy crap that was hilarious!
Darn, I need to re watch this movie.
“Cause you aint woman enough to take my maaaaaaan!” lmfao
He’s awesome in the Fast and Furious films.
How could they forget ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ (aka The Rundown) with Sean William Scott!? That was an awesome movie!
Apparently, the man himself did.
He originally went for the role that was eventually taken by Karl Urban, but he himself chose the role of Sarge instead as he thought the character was more interesting.
Really weird given Sarge is meant to be the hero isn’t he? Urbans role was completely created for the movie >:|
I actually liked Pain and Gain, but do we have to hear about how much you love Bay’s terrible interpretation of Transformers (IMO) in every article you write?
Apparently he’s a top guy too. A mate in Brizvegas had his street shut down to film a new movie featuring The Rock in the house next door. His people were apparently all very pleasant, and Dwayne even dropped by with a few gifts for him and his wife for the inconvenience!
That’s so cool! He was filming ‘San Andreas’ here; I got to meet him, very briefly, but he was really friendly and welcoming and seemed such a happy go lucky guy 🙂
No one is mentioning the ‘Tooth Fairy’? One of the more cringe-inducing movies of his filmography…
‘It’s not quite as good as Transformers, that other modern Hasbro reboot.’
I don’t know if Yannick just has no taste or if he gets off on being a contrarian and is trying so hard to stay ahead of the curve that he’s done a complete 360 and is now back to cheer-leading Michael Bay’s turds.
I actually like the guy. Any man that will stop to play paddy cake with a 6yr old is a true man.
Sweet Article.
One thing though, Hercules is the Roman equivalent of the Greek ‘Heracles’