Eberts Thumb

The big dumb action movie for the 21st Century

Do you miss the big action movies from the 80s and 90s? Did you like seeing an invincible hero take on hundreds of anonymous thugs to save the world from terrorists or his daughter from drug lords? Well, the Marine isn't quite that, but it tries.

The WWE's second theatrical release, following See No evil, follows John Cena's character John Triton's horrible life. First he gets kicked out of the marine corps for breaking into an Al-Quaida stronghold, beating up nine terrorists (he unloaded everything from his assault rifle into them, but goes hand to hand against all of them a second later) and saving three captive marines. The official reason was "disobeying orders". When he gets home, he gets fired on his first day of being a security guard for throwing a guy through a glass window, despite the fact the guy was being a complete dick. The only thing to comfort him are his huge immaculate house, his luxury SUV, and his incredibly hot wife. To cheer himself up, John and his wife head up to the mountains for a quick vacation. Unfortunatly they cross paths with a gang of murderous diamond thieves who take John's wife hostage, and its up to our hero to relentlessly pursue them through the swamp and get his wife back.

We made the mistake of watching the rated version of the movie, but the Unrated version only contains an extra 6 seconds of footage. Namely you see the black guy die. Everyone else dies offscreen. Also they throw in a few f-bombs. It still would have retained its PG-13 rating if they bothered putting it through the rating system with the extra 6 seconds, but that would ruin the mystique of having an Unrated version.

If you are looking for an over the top action flick, the Marine is what you are looking for.

Eberts Thumb's Ratings
Entertainment: 80%	B-Movieness: 50%
Quality: 100%	Regret: 05%

Charles Bronson

THIS SUCKED!

Charles Bronson's Ratings
Entertainment: 75%	B-Movieness: 100%
Quality: 90%	Regret: 20%

El Chupacabra

Action Tackier than a Vegas Whore

The WWE, after failing spectacularly with See No Evil, decides to ignore widely-held public opinion that they should stay out of movies and tries again with The Marine. What WWE seems to make are B-movies that have decent budgets; this is an unsettling contradiction, but their latest attempt actually turns out okay because of its ridiculous action, story, and characters. The Marine, played by professional wrestler John Cena  is a nigh invulnerable and largely witless Rambo knockoff who manages to overcome his adersaries by the sheer amount of physical punishment he is able to take. Punishment such as:

1. Being inside a gas staion when the entire thing erupts in a huge fireball.
2. Being inside a Camaro while criminals empty clip after clip from a few feet away into ever square inch of it.
3. Falling out of a car flying while it is corkscrewing through the air, being shot at, and exploding.
4. Being inside a seedy bar when a huge propane tank explodes beneath it.
5. Being hit solidely in the ribs with a sledgehammer.
6. Being repeatedly punched in the face and having all matter of items broken across his back and head including chairs, bottles, and a fire extinguisher.
7. Yet again, being in another burning building, a warehouse, as it explodes.
   

While he experiences this unbeliebable amount of trauma, his body refuses to bleed, bruise, or be scratched. His eyebrows and hair repel heat like the tiles on the space shuttle and his brain refuses to let sudden, jarring blows phase it. It's a contest to see how many hematomas John Cena can get in 90 minutes. The inside of this guys head should look like red porridge, but somehow he manages to soldier on. Perhaps The Marine actually has a second "brain" in his ass?

It does introduce an interesting type of action hero; there are generally two main types of action heroes. Segal-type heroes are special in that they are basically untouchable and dispatch everyone in a god-like fashion (see Under Siege). Standard heroes are very skilled, but aren't immune to all punishement. The Marine on the other hand doesn"t seem to be particularly good at anything other than giving all the bad guys girl-arms because they're so tired from hitting him.

The only real similarities between The Marine and an actual marine seem to be the haircut, but as it turns out, it is quite entertaining watching Cena take an endless beating at the hands of ex-T1000 Robert Patrick. Patrick was the most entertaining character in the movie and also the most believable. He didn't turn into liquid metal at any point, but that would have been the only thing that might have stopped Cena. He led a less than inspiring gang of criminals through a weak plot that only served to connect the dots which were  exploding buildings. There was some sort of plot twist in there as well with corrupt cops and such, but we were too busy figuring out why Cena just wouldn't die. 

If you like brainless and over-the-top action and miss movies from the past like Cobra and Rambo (II and III) then this should serve as a cheap reminder. Beyond that, it was entertaining to see how many ways you can kill a WWE wreslter... The answer is you can't! On the downside, this movie lacked any blood and gore making it the equivalent of the original Super Ninento version of Mortal Kombat. Sure it had better graphics than the Sega version, but you couldn't uppercut Johnny Cage's head into the next screen. This was ostensibly to achieve a PG rating thereby allowing access to the WWE's target audience of  teenage males.

El Chupacabra's Ratings
Entertainment: 76%	B-Movieness: 62%
Quality: 65%	Regret: 16%

Crap Bag

Unrated version means they can use the F-Bomb

Seeing the marine did not make me want to join the marines.  It made me want to develop the same probability controlling powers that the marine has.  Here’s the list.  Survived being in the middle of multiple explosions, held on to the side of a truck for five minutes as it was driven through walls, pipes and other stuff, should have gotten at least a dozen concussions from almost every fight he got into and, managing to avoid over three million bullets fired from multiple firearms.  All that and the only real injure he sustained was probably athlete’s foot from running twenty miles through a swamp.  Robert Patrick was pretty good as the unhitched bad guy whom seems more concerned with convenience and his cable bill then he does with getting away successfully.  That would explain why he emptied out a machine gun on a cop car in broad day light.  The FBI investigator double cross was pretty much standard not to mention the black guy always complaining about the white man and the foreign driver guy being annoying and getting shot by the leader.

Crap Bag's Ratings
Entertainment: 80%	B-Movieness: 75%
Quality: 90%	Regret: 65%