Product: The Marine (Unrated Edition) (2006)
Rating: 5.0
Fun to watch! . . . If you like sheer action & pure entertainment, it won't disappoint you. Guaranteed!
Last night, I sat comfortably on the sofa at home to watch two action movies consecutively on Star Movies Channel.The two movies share one common feature: They were no-brainers! That is to say, they were pure entertainment, & best of all, you don't need a brain to figure out what the story in each movie was all about.Once in a while, I like to watch no-brainer movies, just for the fun of it. Sometimes, just for random stimuli. so to speak!The two movies were:- 'The Marine', starring John Cena & Robert Patrick;- 'Transporter 2', starring Jason Statham;The first movie was, to me, beautifully choreographed with fiery pyrotechnics & gun blazing actions all the way, from start to finish. There wasn't a dull moment.It had a very simple story plot: A gang of merciless diamond robbers on the run, kidnapped the wife of a recently discharged US marine from Iraq, who later went on a long chase through the marshland & wilderness of South Carolina to save her.At the onset, I did not realised that the movie was actually a promotional vehicle for the people behind those seemingly senseless head-banging & body-crushing wrestling tournaments on television. John Cena was one of those guys.Since I don't like to watch any of their televised wrestling matches, I got to see, at least in this action movie, a lot of his wrestling manoeuvres as he threw those robbers & some other bad guys who stood in his way.Acting-wise, John Cena was somewhat kayu (a colloquial term for 'wooden'), but he had quite a naturally likable disposition. He certainly reminds me of Dwayne Johnson, known as The Rock, the wrestling guy turned actor (e.g. 'The Scorpion King', 'Walking Tall', 'The Rundown', 'Doom', just to name a few), especially with the cheeky wink.Physically, John Cena was huge, but who cares, as long as he could fight & clobber the bad guys in the movie.I reckon the only actor who really stood out in the movie was Robert Patrick, who played the leader of the robbers. He had certainly put on a lot of weight, when compared to the first time I saw him in the second part of the Terminator trilogy, as model T1000. I also recall him as an FBI agent in the 'X-Files' television series.This movie actually reminds me of two two action movies I had watched before, namely, 'The Punisher', starring Thomas Jane as a DEA agent turned vigilante, Frank Castle, & 'The Mechanik', starring Dolph Lundgren as Nikolai Cherenko, an ex-operative from the Russian Special Forces.Together with 'The Marine', they shared one unique & yet common feature: It's all about the adventurous exploits of a one-man fighting &/or destruction machine!The second movie was actually a sequel to 'Transporter', also starring the same actor.Both 'Transporter' movies were apparently hemmed by the famous French action director, Luc Besson, famous for his action flicks, 'Taxi I to IV'.His other movie credits also included 'Nikita', 'The Professional', 'Kiss of the Dragon' (with Jet Li in starring role), 'Wasabi', 'Unleashed' (again with Jet Li in starring role) & 'Hitman' (which I had not yet watched);In both the 'Transporter' movies, Jason Statham played Frank Martin, a retired US Special Forces operative, now turned mercenary transporter of cargo & people, with no questions asked.In this particular one, he was unwittingly implicated in an engineered kidnap attempt of a young boy he was supposed to protect. The young boy was the son of a powerful US government official, involved in cross-border anti-narcotics policy making.The bad guys were the Colombian drug cartel, who had financed a team of rogues led by a real nut case, called Gianni, who had injected a deadly virus into our hero to force him to do all the dirty work.The rest of the movie centred on our hero fighting for his life, as he systematically tracked down & eventually neutralised all the bad guys, while also succeeding in getting the young boy out of harm's way. It was quite fun to watch our hero replicating some of Jackie Chan's signature fighting antics in the movie.I read that Jason Statham had some sort of martial arts background, which probably explained his physical prowess & agility, just like Jean Claude van Damme, in the fighting sequences.For me, the best action sequence in the movie was the segment, when our hero drove his beefed-up Audi up an incline to fly into the air, with an ingenious somersault manoeuvre to dislodge a time-bomb attached to the under portion of the car, with the timely aid of a large hook suspended from a harbour crane located nearby. Wow, that was really cool!Just like the first movie, there wasn't a dull moment in this one, as it was also beautifully choreographed with adrenalin-pumping action sequences throughout, from start to finish.Acting-wise, Jason Statham probably fared better than John Cena in my view. His many acting credits included 'Ghosts of Mars', 'The One' (with Jet Li), 'Italian Job', 'Cellular', 'Chaos', 'Crank' & latest 'Rogue Assassins' (with Jet Li, which I have yet to watch).The bottomline of my movie review: The two action movies, although seemingly no-brainers, have been real fun to watch, at least for me. If you like sheer action & pure entertainment, they won't disappoint you. Guaranteed!