Product: The Marine [UMD for PSP] (2006)
Rating: 3.0
Another one-man army
At the outset, it is prudent to state the obvious: action movies are prone to having sequences that are not believable. No matter how good (or bad) the action flick, this remains true. However, some action movies push the envelope so far beyond the realm of believability that the movies become more like cartoons rather than films to be taken seriously.Such is the case with this present movie. There are huge explosions in which people walk away unscathed. A police car gets shot to pieces by about a thousand bullets, then flies off a cliff, yet our hero waltzes away as insouciantly as though he's returning from Walmart with a bag of groceries.The casting of the story is decent. Robert Patrick is nice & sinister and as such plays a good bad guy, and there is a cute reference toTerminator 2 - Judgment Day (Extreme DVD). John Cena is certainly buffed up enough to be a credible action hero, but the problem is he has no acting prowess whatsoever. He makes fellow wrestler-turned-actor The Rock look like Charleton Heston.By far & away the best performance belongs to Kelly Carlson. It is clear that she has bona-fide acting talents, most of which are wasted in this farce of an action movie. I do hope to see more of her in the future - much more!Beyond the believability aspect of the film, the pacing is pretty lousy. The opening scene shows the hero doing heroic things on a mission against terrorists in Iraq. I think the movie would have been much better had they stretched out this scene another 20 minutes, as it was actually interesting. Instead, they stretch out the last 1/2 of the film, and things move along at a snail's pace.Also, it appears that the filmmakers were a bit torn on which direction they wanted the movie to go, ratings wise. It had a few golden opportunities for un-contrived gratuitous nudity. Unfortunately, they held back, ostensibly just for the PG-13 rating. Had they made an "R" version of the movie, it would have been a lot better. I would have loved to see Ms. Carlson topless!All-in-all, this movie is for action movie junkies only. And, even they will wince at just how un-believable some of the sequences are. For myself, I hope that John Cena goes to acting school before making another film. Hey, it DID work wonders for Arnie!