What the Rock is cookin'

Why hasn't the Rock really made it big? Don't get me wrong, the dude is BIG, at least in bicep circumference, but while he's got the dubious distinction of having been in a (three) movie(s) that have been in the top 10 for the last 15 weeks, which is quite a thing, especially during the bombastic summer season, if you take a deeper dive, are any of those actually due to him? I'm going to immediately discount Snitch, even though it's his one real starring vehicle, because... well, nobody saw Snitch.

He's gotta get some credit for GI Joe Retaliation -- the first one was so bad that the sequel had a tough row to hoe from the start, and the addition of the Dwayne as Roadblock definitely piqued interest, though I think the real draw here was the "it can't be as bad as the first one, right?" and the early release of that crazy ninjas-on-the-mountain scene, which immediately eclipsed (and erased the memory of) the entirety of the first movie:

I don't think he gets much from Pain & Gain, though -- that's a Michael Bay vehicle through and through, with a little bit of the Marky Mark thrown in. I've heard he's really good in it, but I don't think many folks were all about the Dwayne in this one.

Then there's the movie of the summer (so far at least), Furious 6. While there's no doubt that his inclusion in this franchise is a damn good thing -- and that these movies didn't get good until he joined up -- he's still nowhere near the main draw. He just walks around looking Hulk-like and being gruff, but he's not involved in most of the reasons this flick is so outstanding. He doesn't even get to drive a cool car, for crap's sake!

But back to the Hulk-like:

The dude is just HUGE. When he was first making the transition from wrestling to the big screen in The Rundown, Mr. Johnson acutally got a little bit smaller than he was when he was in the ring, going for that everyman (or at least the Hollywood version of it) thing... but he quickly moved completely away from that. Which makes sense for the movies he's making now, which are big, dumb, and completely cartoonish, so making himself into a living, breathing action figure is the right way to go. But in the long run, it's probably pretty limiting. The dude's got charisma to burn and he seems damn smart onscreen, no matter how dumb the shit around him might be, but there's no way right now he could be taken seriously in any sort of dramatic role... like Snitch, maybe? In some ways, the fact that popular cinema has such a superhero fetish right now works to his advantage, but he still has yet to really capitalize on his own. There are rumors he's gunning for Power Man, which is about the only way I can see him really headlining anything major at this point. He needs something Conan- or Terminator-like to really launch him.

But no matter what, at least Michael Bay gave me this, my current favorite picture:

Furious 6

There is really only one word to describe this magnificent opus, and it's the one we uttered immediately to each other after the thing ended and the lovely wife and I exited the theater:

AWESOME.

Definitely not "good," because there's really not a whole lot about this series that's defensible if you try to examine it piece by piece. The acting is... not good. The story is... overly simplistic. The so-called jokes are... not in any way funny. (though the so-called dramatic scenes are often intensely amusing. (There's a scene near the end where Luke Evans tells everyone to look at Vin Diesel's face to see if the Vin thinks he's joking, and since Vin has a face roughly as expressive -- if not less so -- then the Iron Giant he played years ago, I burst out laughing, because he had the same semi-constipated look he had in every other scene in the flick.)

Yep, that's the look.

 And yet... the whole thing works like gangbusters. The second it was over (even before the credits rolled, but after -- and honestly, mostly because of -- the post "don't try this at home" warning stinger -- I was immediately ready for part 7 to start). Much credit has to be given not only to the stunt team, which I hope is having the time of their lives coming up with the crazy auto work in these things, but also to Justin Lin, who somehow straddles that line of taking this world of fast cars, muscle-bound brutes, and sexy ladies completely seriously while letting the audience know he's in on the joke and that it's okay to laugh at/with the damn thing. Though there was a music-video montage scene right in the middle before a street race (all ass-focused, fade in/out, slo-mo action) that was too pedestrian '90s rap video-esque for me not to roll my eyes at even in the general lack of seriousness that is the FF franchise.

Not that it's really necessary to enjoy FF6, though there are callbacks galore to the previous films in the franchise, I've somehow been (un)lucky enough to have seen them all, even though only parts 5 and 6 are any good -- I mean, any AWESOME. And how many series not only get better with part 5 but are then even more glorious in the sixth installment? I do fear a bit for part 7, not only because of the change in director but because I can't imagine how they're going to possibly top the ridiculousness of 6... and because I'll almost certainly be rooting for the "bad guy" to win.