Product: The Marine (Unrated Edition) (2006)
Rating: 2.0
If meant to be a spoof, it is passable: "Come on baby light my fire"
For the first half hour of this movie the viewer may get the idea that the script Michelle Gallagher and Alan B. McElroy is just awful (with good perception!), but as the film's story evolves the idea that this may just be a National Lampoon parody of action flicks - and if that is the case, it is truly a funny bit of entertainment - for a while. Then it becomes obvious that the minimal storyline (ex-Marine's wife is abducted by diamond thieves and Marine elects to leave his one day 'security job' and take the initiative to capture his wife and strike down the bad guys in the swamps of North Carolina) is really just a matrix for staging as many pyrotechniques explosions as possible. It does get tedious.The 'star' of this noisy, 'Unrated-for-destructive-violence' film is one John Cena, another wrestler from WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) being promoted by the director John Bonito to follow the path of The Rock: the difference is The Rock has done some classy acting and a range of roles that call for much more than flexing whereas Cena seems completely like a fish out of water who has yet to take a class in acting basics. John Cena does have a splendid physique and perhaps that should have been more on camera. Instead his 'John Triton' character, despite his tremendous physical advantages, gets beaten up by some pretty small and older guys, making us wonder why he has all that bulk and no fighting ability.The cast is good to adequate and once you realize this film is a parody, they seem even better delivering the corny lines they are given. Among the crew are Robert Patrick as Rome (the chief bad guy), Kelly Carlson as John's wife, Anthony Ray Parker as the hilarious 'token black' bad guy (he truly has comedic talent), hunkies Manu Bennett and Frank Carlopio for eye candy, Abigail Bianca, Jerome Ehlers, Damon Gibson, and Drew Powell as the crew in flight. They are a likeable bunch of criminals but oh can they blow things up! For the action film addicts only. Grady Harp, February 07