Overall Rating
  Awesome: 16.05%
Worth A Look: 6.17%
Average: 29.63%
Pretty Bad: 11.11%
Total Crap: 37.04%
6 reviews, 45 user ratings
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| Marine, The |
by William Goss
"Semper Tantrum"
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It sure doesn’t inspire confidence that 'The Marine' is produced by WWE Films and was withheld from press, as was last May’s Kane-starring slasher 'See No Evil,' but in the face of such underwhelming precedent and the nadir of expectations, 'The Marine' is more or less a gloriously senseless curiosity that harkens back to the eighties – both as a prime time period responsible for similarly petty all-American action vehicles for wrestling superstars, and as an IQ score necessary to fully appreciate the nature of copious explosions and general mayhem.The laughs start from frame one, as brief credits give way to the title, itself neighbored by a saluting John Cena in full Marine regalia atop an American flag, just there with no additional context or purpose other than to prime viewers for some serious eye-rolling. Soon enough, his character, John Triton, single-handedly takes on Tikrit terrorists and rescues American prisoners, only to be subsequently discharged on indistinct grounds likely related to his above-mentioned ass-kicking tactics. He runs home to his wife (Kelly Carlson), and the pair swiftly embark on an impromptu vacation. They inadvertently run into Rome (Robert Patrick) and his gang of diamond thieves, she gets taken hostage, and he vows to retrieve her, by any combustible means necessary.
It isn’t that The Marine is smarter than it has any right to be, but that it isn’t as outright obtuse as it hypothetically deserves to be. The players don’t kid themselves about what type of picture they’re out to make, and while Cena lacks in the departments of charisma and talent, he can certainly fit the bill as a muscle-bound brute. Besides, it’s been ages since ‘action star’ had to equate with ‘actor’, so he makes a suitable substitute for projects that simply can’t afford The Rock or even Jason Statham to kick ass and take names.
Patrick doesn’t chew the scenery as much as he sits there, constantly licking his lips. He makes for an apt villain, one who simply doesn’t have the time to be pestered by the fact that their hostage’s tenacious hubby would really like the missus back and won’t hesitate to take out a goon or three in the process. When one of said minions compares Triton to the Terminator, Patrick shoots a priceless glare in the rear-view mirror that deserves a better movie to belong in. Every other actor is wholly disposable, and are treated as such, although one certainly wouldn’t give up Carlson (“Nip/Tuck”) without a fight either.
Director John Bonito films the action almost fetishistically, exaggerating every scene to sporadically hysterical degrees, employing plenty of slo-mo pyro effect because one man can just never bound from enough explosions. (Slow motion is employed so frequently that, has the entire film played at regular speed, it’d probably come in under an hour.) There can’t just be a car chase shootout; it has to be the systematic destruction of a police cruiser and the convenient missing of several hundred bullets at one man sans windshield or Kevlar. Fights are mostly bloodless, and deaths often occur off-screen, but for all its PG-13 trappings, its brisk pacing and cockeyed sense of humor prevents the overblown ruckus of it all from resulting in too much brain damage.Despite the shamelessly gung-ho nature of its advertising campaign, how much one enjoys 'The Marine' doesn’t depend so much on one’s level of patriotism as it depends on their penchant for shit blowin’ up real good.
link directly to this review at https://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=15260&reviewer=409
originally posted: 10/14/06 10:23:06
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USA
13-Oct-2006 (PG-13)
DVD: 30-Jan-2007
UK
N/A
DVD: 07-May-2007
Australia
25-Jul-2007 (M)
DVD: 25-Jul-2007
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