“The Rundown” (2003)
Also known as “Welcome to the Jungle” as well as “Helldorado” for a while (like Johnson’s wrestling persona, it boasts a surfeit of catchphrases), Peter Berg‘s film represented the first genuine attempt to make Johnson into the kind of movie star it would take him another decade or so to really become. And that is on us, cinemaplex-going peoples of the world: we were the ones who were given exactly what we always say we want — a brainlessly fun, escapist romp through exotic locations with plenty of quippy chemistry between the leads (Johnson and Seann William Scott) and a world-class line reading of the word “Wow!” from baddie Christopher Walken — and we made it a flop. Making back a little under its $85m budget worldwide, the film also stars Rosario Dawson and features a tiny cameo from Johnson’s career talisman Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as a bafflingly odd speech in which Walken’s character likens Johnson’s to the Tooth Fairy, which is presumably where someone got the idea to cast Johnson in the awful “Tooth Fairy” seven years later. But outside of that it’s a well-made, extremely amiable treasure hunt through the Brazilian rainforest featuring, in particular for The Rock’s old-skool fans, a terrific fight sequence between Johnson and whirling dervish martial artist Ernie Reyes Jr. But it also shows off Johnson’s talents outside of fisticuffs: his oddly asexual charisma (as so often in his movies, the closest anyone gets to sex is a chaste kiss), his gleaming grin and his dextrous way with a witty line — this last especially a surprise to those of us not familiar with WWE, a world in which the 245lb The Rock was always known as one of the greatest — if not the greatest — talker of all time.
“Race to Witch Mountain” (2008)
As a remake of a fairly creaky 1970s Disney live-action kids film, it’s likely that few of us had particularly high hopes for “Race to Witch Mountain,” especially as it seemed to be more or less business as usual for Johnson. Floundering a little after a string of underperforming would-be breakouts, the late 00s saw him enter a weird limbo of bit parts, kids films and one disastrous foray into would-be cult auteur indiedom with Richard Kelly‘s “Southland Tales” (and while there’s literally no rescuing anyone from that garbage fire, we will continue to maintain that The Rock and Miranda Richardson are the only two actors in it who have the faintest idea of the right tone to go for). But amongst that underwhelming crop, ‘Witch Mountain’ is actually the best of his starring roles from this period, achieving the closest to the smart-aleck humor and stunts of his finest hours, while also displaying a level of heart and sweetness that, for once, doesn’t tip over into cloying sentimentality. Co-starring Carla Gugino (Johnson’s most frequent co-star having now been in three films with him), as well as Anna-Sophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig as the two alien kids and Ciaran Hinds as the bad-guy government agent, it’s a cut above the standard Disney family film in terms of its satisfyingly semi-Spielbergian sci-fi storyline, and Johnson’s turn as the ordinary-Joe ex-con cab driver who turns out to be a hero more due to the purity of his heart than the circumference of his pecs, is something of an archetype for him as an actor and, more recently, as a star. And if we have to take one film as representative of his family film work, better its this than the dire “Tooth Fairy” or the charmless “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island.”
“The Other Guys” (2010)
This 2010 Adam McKay film probably shouldn’t be here as Johnson’s only in it for a few scant minutes, and the film is funny enough in its own right that you can’t even say he’s the best thing in it (that, obviously, is Will Ferrell‘s lion vs tuna speech, specifically the part about kelp. Or maybe the fact that Michael Keaton‘s police chief works part-time at Bed Bath & Beyond. Or maybe Eva Mendes being constantly referred to as “homely.” Or maybe…God, guess I really love this film). But Johnson’s role here is pivotal and perfectly performed despite being scarcely more than a cameo. In less than ten minutes he has a terrific opening credits action scene with fellow supercop Samuel L. Jackson in which he drives a bus with a car rammed through it and destroys Trump Tower, delivers stupid lines to bad guys like “Hey! Wednesday night is taco night at Riker’s Island!” and gets the funniest, dumbest, most unexpected death ever. Like so many of Johnson’s comedy roles, the laughs comes from his innate understanding of the ridiculousness of the ideal he represents elsewhere. Around this time, certainly, with this film and the inferior “Get Smart” in which he plays a similarly intimidating super-spy he seemed almost gleeful in trashing the muscle-choked hero persona — a human pump-action shotgun — that he had worked so hard to cultivate prior. And the difference between Johnson’s comedy and that of fellow action stars Sly and Arnie, both of whom also turned their hands to lighter fare? Johnson doesn’t need to be put in contrived, wacky situations in which more adept comedians cover up his comedic shortcomings by bouncing manically off his oaklike surfaces. He can actually play funny from the inside out.
“Faster” (2010)
Perhaps rebounding from that string of comedy supporting roles and bouncy kids flicks, Johnson took on his most po-faced actioner yet with “Faster” — a film unusual in his oeuvre for being more grime than grin. Deliberately hardboiled and pared-back to the point that most of the characters are simply referred to by their archetypes rather than by name (Johnson plays “Driver”; Oliver Jackson-Cohen plays “Killer”; and Billy Bob Thornton plays “Cop”), it’s not entirely successful, with a whole subplot about Killer’s girlfriend (Maggie Grace) that does nothing except stall the plot’s supposedly sharklike momentum. But in the distinctly “Point Blank“-indebted, Jim Thompson pulp tradition it sort of emulates, Johnson proves a surprisingly magnetic presence even when unusually taciturn and given no opportunity for the kind of twinkly-eyed good-nature that bubbles under the surface of almost all his other roles, when it’s not explicitly mined. Unfortunately, director George Tillman Jr. (“Notorious“) isn’t quite so assured in his command of tone and the film ends up in a kind of no man’s land — not quite parched enough to sit alongside the classics in the lean revenge flick genre, but too linear to earn its more Tarantino-esque flourishes either. But as evidence that Johnson can be compelling even when not under a barrage of 3-D whizz-poppery or rapid-fire wisecrackery, it’s a definite notch on his belt. And, in retrospect, despite its box-office underperformance it feels like it brought him one step closer to the kind of all-rounder status that he has finally earned — another string to his already well-strung bow, proving you can place him anywhere on the action movie spectrum and he’ll slot right in.
“Fast Five” (2011)/”Fast & Furious 6″ (2013)/”Furious 7″ (2015)
Did the “Fast & Furious” franchise land on The Rock, or did The Rock land on the “Fast & Furious” franchise? It’s one of the great chicken-or-egg conundrums of our time, but suffice to say in 2011 Dwayne Johnson was a megastar without a megahit to justify the title, and the petrolhead franchise was ailing. Its fourth installment had presented a higher return than the previous outing, but lower than “2 Fast 2 Furious” and, at just $207m worldwide, significantly under the tally of the first one. All that changed with “Fast Five,” which reinvigorated the drag-racing drama of previous entries by transforming it into a heist movie narrative, and by adding in a new adversary-cum-ally (with Paul Walker‘s O’Connor and Vin Diesel‘s Toretto long since having patched things up and become, in the insistent parlance of the film, “family”). That character, agent Luke Hobbs, also eventually succumbs to the irresistible lure of Toretto’s not-quite-legal but deeply noble code of ethics, but the meta-narrative of the franchise is more the other way around: Johnson’s personal charisma and genuine good-sport vibe upped the film’s fun factor by several grades and, fast and furiously, it became the most lucrative entry to that date. In fact, its $625m worldwide box office even suggested that the golden $1bn barrier might not be out of reach in the future, and so all subsequent installments were retooled in its image: complex heist plots involving ever more ludicrous stunts, plus all the old gang, plus Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. And duly, they made increasing coin, with the slightly inferior seventh film making around $750m while “Furious 7” broke the cash register entirely and netted $1.5bn. Perhaps the real proof of Johnson’s pulling power with this franchise will come with “Fast 8,” however, which will no longer have Paul Walker and in which, presumably, he will be taking a more central role as a result. Whatever its final tally, if they include a single moment as great as Johnson cracking out of his own arm cast in the last one, needless to say, we’ll be there.
“Pain & Gain” (2013)
Aside from “The Rock,” (ironically, given the subject of this feature) it wouldn’t particularly bother us if all Michael Bay movies fell irretrievably into a sinkhole somewhere. But if we were forced at gunpoint to save more than one, the second spot would probably go to “Pain & Gain” and that is almost entirely in spite of Bay’s horrible direction, and almost wholly due to Dwayne Johnson. Almost managing to overcome the significant handicap of the director’s uselessly overflashy style (it’s especially irritating here because in Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Mackie, Ed Harris, Johnson et al he has a cast of good human people actors who have all proven themselves capable of selling an action scene without the million cuts needed to make a CG robot look like it’s bashing another CG robot), Johnson shines in the odd handful of moments when the camera stays still long enough to register anything like a performance. However, far too much of it is not Dwayne Johnson, as the film goes on way too long using every expositionary trick in the book (voice-over narration, titles, interrogation scenes, courtroom testimonies, flashbacks/forwards) to adorn a plot so ruthlessly simplistic three dunderheads could come up with it. And indeed sort of did, as the story of a trio of gym-rat bodybuilders who get involved in a terribly poorly thought-through get-rich-quick scheme involving kidnapping, extortion, torture and eventually murder, is loosely based in fact. But that Johnson can not only come out of a Michael Bay movie with his head high, but actually be good enough in it to have us recommending the film, however faintly, should really tell you all you need to know: pop a couple of dramamine, try to ignore the Bay staples of misogyny and homophobia, only pay attention when The Rock is onscreen (though Tony Shalhoub is good value, too) and you might even enjoy it a bit.
This is really only a tiny taster menu of the delights on offer from Dwayne Johnson — who, as an actor, is incredibly consistent across all his films, no matter how good or (often) bad they have been. From his start as the Scorpion King in “The Mummy Returns” which spawned its own film “The Scorpion King” — both of which are too marred by horrible CG that often renders him near-unrecognisable to be included above — right through to last summer’s dull destructo-fest “San Andreas,” it’s been a 15-year climb to the top and there have been chutes and ladders along the way. The better films, aside from those above, include two more serious movies, inspirational coach film “Gridiron Gang” and “Snitch,” which is uneven but does show off a more thoughtful side of the actor. “Walking Tall,” “Doom” and “Be Cool” are all pretty poor, despite his role in the latter being more or less tailormade for him; “Southland Tales” has to be seen to be believed, but only once; ‘Journey 2’ is garish and contrived, but he does sing in it, so there’s that; and “G.I. Joe: Retaliation” could be likened to a traffic accident, if ever a traffic accident could be so instantly forgettable. The biggest gap in my own otherwise fairly comprehensive knowledge of his output is undoubtedly “Ballers,” his HBO comedy whose second season is due to premier in July. Perhaps I should catch up on series one before then, but I am curiously reluctant to watch him on the small screen: Dwayne Johnson is in every sense of the word big, and like Norma Desmond he deserves, and is finally getting, pictures big enough to contain him.
