Ticketverse Throwbacks #3: Speaking of John Cena...
Good afternoon and happy Throwback Thursday, Ticketholders!
I'm unsure about the numbering on this issue because it is a holdover from my days of posting on MySpace and the site has changed so much that I don't know if my account is even up there anymore, but from information I do have from previous posts and hard copy materials, I believe today's Ticketverse Throwback is FROM SW@ Ticket #57: Speaking of John Cena... (July 20, 2008). It was also the final entry from my SW@ Ticket Archive blog before I started submitting fresh posts in Just the Ticket.
As promised in this morning's New Piece Offerings, I now offer you a review of The Champ's performance in what was then tagged as "The Most Explosive Action Movie of the Year."
And The Marine, quite literally, was explosive.
A gas station blows up, a bullet-riddled police car catches fire in midair, another (perfectly good) police car is shot with a rocket launcher, a beach house is sent skyward due to a gunshot-punctured generator, a semi truck crashes through at least a dozen propane tanks, blah, blah, blah, BOOM!
John Cena is ex-Marine John Triton, honorably discharged from Iraq and stuck behind a desk with no arms to break and no bodies to perforate, until his wife is suddenly kidnapped by a team of ruthless bank robbers.
The initial subtle comedy and cheap romance are a true spark in contrast with the cold steel which sets off the numerous and monotonous pyrotechnics that follow. Not only that, but the elements around and between explosions aren't that much better.
Cena, while a good aesthetic match for Kelly Carlson (who plays porn-star-turned-scientologist Kimber on the FX series Nip/Tuck), is outmatched in charisma by the villain of the picture, Robert Patrick (best known as T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, but who also starred alongside David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in the final years of The X-Files).
The plot is predictable, the twist little more than a shallow bend, and the secondary villains (hell, even the main villain) are merely straw men to be shat upon and pushed over. There is also the fact that said villain is stupid; not funny stupid, but movie stupid (as in "try to kill the hero by the same ineffective means until he finally kicks my ass" stupid).
Fortunately, while the villain is movie stupid, the damsel in distress is not Disney helpless, which is something we should all hope for in our action movies (even those of us who are not members of NOW). So if you've already rented The Marine, I sympathize. If you bought it, I don't. And if you've had better things to spend your money on, keep doing so because if you're not into explosion movies, you haven't missed a thing.
C-
Remember to blow up the comments, pull the trigger on that like button, and crash through some ads with your mouse button so I can get movie villain rich. I'll see you next time with more words from the Grimm Fairy Tales Retrospective.
Ticketmaster,
out.
I'm unsure about the numbering on this issue because it is a holdover from my days of posting on MySpace and the site has changed so much that I don't know if my account is even up there anymore, but from information I do have from previous posts and hard copy materials, I believe today's Ticketverse Throwback is FROM SW@ Ticket #57: Speaking of John Cena... (July 20, 2008). It was also the final entry from my SW@ Ticket Archive blog before I started submitting fresh posts in Just the Ticket.
As promised in this morning's New Piece Offerings, I now offer you a review of The Champ's performance in what was then tagged as "The Most Explosive Action Movie of the Year."
And The Marine, quite literally, was explosive.
John Cena is ex-Marine John Triton, honorably discharged from Iraq and stuck behind a desk with no arms to break and no bodies to perforate, until his wife is suddenly kidnapped by a team of ruthless bank robbers.
The initial subtle comedy and cheap romance are a true spark in contrast with the cold steel which sets off the numerous and monotonous pyrotechnics that follow. Not only that, but the elements around and between explosions aren't that much better.
Cena, while a good aesthetic match for Kelly Carlson (who plays porn-star-turned-scientologist Kimber on the FX series Nip/Tuck), is outmatched in charisma by the villain of the picture, Robert Patrick (best known as T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, but who also starred alongside David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in the final years of The X-Files).
The plot is predictable, the twist little more than a shallow bend, and the secondary villains (hell, even the main villain) are merely straw men to be shat upon and pushed over. There is also the fact that said villain is stupid; not funny stupid, but movie stupid (as in "try to kill the hero by the same ineffective means until he finally kicks my ass" stupid).
Fortunately, while the villain is movie stupid, the damsel in distress is not Disney helpless, which is something we should all hope for in our action movies (even those of us who are not members of NOW). So if you've already rented The Marine, I sympathize. If you bought it, I don't. And if you've had better things to spend your money on, keep doing so because if you're not into explosion movies, you haven't missed a thing.
C-
Remember to blow up the comments, pull the trigger on that like button, and crash through some ads with your mouse button so I can get movie villain rich. I'll see you next time with more words from the Grimm Fairy Tales Retrospective.
Ticketmaster,
out.
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