Customer Reviews

The Marine

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

I never expected to be so thrilled and entertained by this almost tongue-in-cheek non-stop action thriller.
Robert Patrick (The BAD Terminator, in Terminator 2) is perfect as a vicious killer, but still pokes fun at his own movie when one of his killer friends who is failing at getting "The Marine" off their back, comments: "This guy is worse than the Terminator!".
The DVD and Blu-ray releases are crystal clear and fully color satutated. The spectacular stunts are supported by an incredibly potent DTS soundtrack.

I am afraid that some reviews I have seen show either an anti-military bias or else expect things of this movie they would not demand of others of its type. The movie is not political in ANY way, but there is a fairly heroic brief starting episode in Iraq; I guess some don't like that.

This is in fact a terrific action/adventure movie in the mold of the Rambo or Schwarzenegger films (eg "Commando") or the Indiana Jones series. The violence is not accurate in depiction of results, but neither is it in any movie where female stars takes full-power strikes and come bouncing back. If reality counted in the movies, there would be no girl-star action movies.

The violence is actually toned down in favor of action. For example, Sgt. Triton chooses to takes out two very tough villains in exciting brawls when he has a good fighting knife with him. Reality would have been different .... and much bloodier. Not much gore or blood in this picture, however, and you can safely take your pre-teen or teen son. Or yourself. My wife liked it, too, for that matter.

The acting was top-drawer within the context of the plot. I never heard of John Cena,so I can't be considered biased. Triton was seen first in front of his commanding officer, then interacting with his wife. He was supposed to be emotionally restrained with his commander, and strong but a little reflective with his wife. He was. Then The Marine had a mission. He had to complete it, not emote and burst into tears. After the adrenalin high wore off, he'd probably start shaking, but while things were going on, he didn't have time to be upset. Man, haven't the sweetie-boys who have panned his acting ever been in a fight? I never heard of the star,but he turned in a very believable good performance for the part. The excellent-looking wife did a fine job as well. No nudity in this movie. Unfortunately.

In sum, a fine example of its type and highly recommended for all. It requires some suspension of belief, but most action movies do. It will grab you hard and keep you watching.

Basicly this story is about a retired marine whose whife gets kidnaped from a hostage situiation. Well it's definatly action packed...but not completly true to life. Lots of explosions and fight sceans that are unnecessary. But it is very fun to watch if you don't mind random cars blowing up all over the place.

This by far the worst movie that I have ever paid to see at a theatre. That is not to say that it wouldn't make a good rental; where through multiple viewers you could knock the viewing price down to 15 cents a person, but then that would still be too much to pay for this movie. WWE Entertainment should stick to what it does best - wrestling events where the story line is better inside the squared circle. Outside of a Terminator reference made to Robert Patrick, this is a total waste of 91 minutes of your life.

OK. First off, I don't see this movie winning any prizes for story, script, plot, or anything like that.

That being said, I think it was a good action flick. It was well-casted, the fight scenes were well-choreographed, and the explosions were lots of fun. Also, I think it was a good start for Cena. Get the man some acting lessons and let him try something that doesn't involve as much running around and beating the heck out of people.

You pays your money and you takes your choice. When you go to see a movie like this, you should know what you're in for. There's going to be a lot of bad guys, and they're going to be really bad. There's going to be a damsel in distress. There's going to be a surprise bad guy. And, last but not least, there's going to be a good guy who is good and tough beyond belief.

John Triton (John Cena) is an heroic ex-marine whose wife, Kate (Kelly Carlson) is kidnapped by a brutal gang of jewel thieves led by Rome (Robert Patrick), who kills with glee and without remorse, which doesn't set him apart from his psychopathic gang members. John takes out after them. You get the feeling that John can take on anything up to the size of a platoon without much of a problem. While credibility might suffer during his chase, it's still fun. You will rarely see a human being with arms the size of Cena's.

Written (Michelle Gallagher and Alan McElroy) and directed (John Bonito) with humor and pace, what surprised me about it was that the acting is uniformly good, including Cena. This is a tongue-in-cheek chase film with some absurdly unbelievable stunts and special effects, but it's all done on a level that nobody takes very seriously.

Although there is a lot of violence, it's not graphic in the sense that we see people's heads being blown off. I was tired and sleepy when I attended the film, but never even felt a twinge of nodding off.

Perfect for a saturday night with friends after a long week of work.

You really have to give it up to wrestling promoter Vince McMahon. He has failed miserably with the WBF, XFL and programs on MTV & he couldn't sell a quality meal in New York City. So Vince now tries that magic business touch in the film industry. Huh?

It appears that Vince has just a little jealousy towards "The Rock," Dwayne Johnson, and his great success making movies to the point where he doesn't need to do any bumps for the WWE and the McMahon family. Granted, Vince receives a nice sum of cash for Johnson's wrestling moniker to be used for movies, but that just isn't enough.

And where Johnson has long-since passed up the 1980s-styled superhero genre, here comes Vince lumbering along in his powerwalk with his answer to The Rock, John Cena. Yes, that John Cena who was going to be a hip-hop star; until he proved that he has no hip and zero hop in his mic skills.

But have a script comparable with Sylvester Stallone's ridiculous Rambo character - with Cena's mannerisms that could be termed as the nephew to the fictional tough-guy - blow all kinds of things up and Vince is in business. Hardly.

The first weekend in theaters, October 13-15, 2006, The Marine did a tepid $7 million in box office sales and then sank faster than a pay-per-view main event featuring Fit Finlay.

Cena plays his WWE role well, but he isn't a real actor. Vince is a wrestling promoter who has failed each time he has stepped outside the family business. The Marine was produced 20-plus years too late to have anyone but the biggest WWE Cena fans taking time to see it in theaters.

And Vince better keep that cozy economic reality in mind for the next flick.

Now The Marine doesn't try to be a good movie, it lets you know right from the beginning what it is going to be. A huge muscleman marine is told to wait for the rest of the soldiers on a mission. He says "not enough time" and charges in to blow things up. Next scene he is being discharged and has to go find a job as a security guard. This is all in the first 2 minutes of the movie. The thing that really bothered me about the movie was that everything that went on really had no point and did not make a difference later in the film. That isn't the only thing they weren't able to complete, not by a long shot. The bad guys have this big black guy on their side and he is not unfunny, they just don't give him anything funny to say. I seriously think that he didn't complete a single joke. In fact, the liquid metal guy from Terminator 2 stars as the main bad guy and they even throw in a reference to that and it was the only joke they actually completed. I thought that it was the least bad part of the movie.

Now the reason I went to see this was becasue I was told it had great fights. The shootouts were nice to look at and the explosions became so repetitious I almost fell asleep, but the fights were once again just the same old I hit you and then you hit me style. The best fight of the movie included 2 characters who were never explained and this scene could have been from entirely different film for all I know. So if you are looking for the worst big budget movie of the year, then check this out.

You know those movies from back in the day that you thought were great, but you watch them now and think they are the worst movies ever made? This movie could certainly fit the later, but whether you think it is any good in the first place remains to be seen. The quality of this movie, or lack thereof as the case may be, is evidenced in the filming sequence (you've seen it a 100 times before in every B movie that has come before it) and the dialog (painful) of the opening scene. There is no plot nor dialog to be had in this movie.

This movie is about WWE style action and John Cena. Some good points, the death of Angela was a fun scene, as well as John's police car going over the cliff. That sequence was excellent, but of course the 5 minutes that preceded that of the police car getting shot up, was way over the top and beyond belief. I hope they were just making fun of bad action films, but I think they were actually just being one. There are a couple of other so unbelievable scenes that I was actually left feeling the director could care less about the intelligence level of his adult audience.

So, I really can not recommend this movie, and thought it bad enough to write a review. If you are a fan of WWE and John Cena and want to see action no more believable as what you might see on Smackdown, you may very well like this movie. There is nothing wrong with that if that is your bag, and the 16 year old WWE fan I took seemed to like it. But if you expect to get more for your money, then I recommend passing on this one.

I did want to add a few comments. First, I seem to have hit a nerve with some fans. Sorry. That is my honest review. Don't smack-me-down because I really hated this movie that you may have liked. As I said, it may very well be likable by some people, as it was by the 16 year old I took to see it. Heck, I actually enjoyed Paris Hilton's one hit wonder, but I'm honest enough to know that many people think even less of her then I did of this movie. All the more power to them, as long at they are honest in their review. So give me a break on that please. I did also want to add one thing I liked about this movie, which is at least it was cheaper to take my fiance and her son to see it, then it was to pay for one pay per view smackdown.

John Triton is a heroic Marine who returns home after being discharged--against his will--from the Iraq War. Stateside, he finds himself back in action, when his wife is kidnapped by a murderous gang led by a merciless criminal named Rome. With everything on the line, the Marine will stop at nothing to carry out his toughest and most important mission. John Cena was great in this movie and so were Robert Patrick & Kelly Carlson. If you're looking for a great action movie you found one with The Marine.