Dwayne Johnson. Better known as The Rock. Dwayne, âThe Rock,â Johnson. Need I say more?
I know: I donât. The Rock speaks for himself, often in the third person. But Iâm going to anyway. Because Hercules is finally upon us.
I donât even need to see the whole movie to tell you itâs going to be amazing. How can it not be? Itâs a movie about Dwayne âThe Rockâ Johnson acting like heâs Hercules. He doesnât even need to be a good actor for his performance to be stellar. The Rock already is Hercules, insofar as a modern-day professional wrestler-turned-actor can resemble a statuesque Greek legend from ancient times. The real question here is why it took this long for Hollywood to put two and two together and finally. It doesnât even take a director as experienced and talented as Brett Ratner to help us realize this; all one really needs to do is point a camera at the guy and let him be himself. Or, at least, be The Rock.
Let me revisit some highlights from Dwayne âThe Rockâ Johnsonâs film career to better remember what brought him to this moment:
The Mummy Returns
Johnsonâs first big role outside of his wrestling career was as a half-villain, half Deus ex Machina plot device in this 2001 Brendan Fraser-lead Indiana Jones tribute. Casting The Rock as an unintelligible half-naked warrior who later turns into a half-man, half-scorpion monster painted with some truly awful early 21st century CGI was pretty much the perfect way to introduce the man to the non-WWE watching universe.
The Scorpion King
The Rock revisited his role from The Mummy a year later in a spin-off origin story. The movie didnât really succeed in its mission to turn the film series into a proper franchise. But it was also the first time The Rock was handed a true leading role. People started to notice his potential.
Walking Tall
Johnson truly came into his own on screen in this 2004 masterpiece about The Rock solving a small townâs problems by hitting them with a gigantic piece of wood. Walking Tall stands up as one of his best movies to this day. It also provides a fascinating window into the manâs unique approach to being an action movie star: whether he was playing a hero or a villain, The Rock realized he could win audiences by borrowing some of the bizarre, over-the-top swagger that he brought to the ring during the glory days of his WWE career. But he also began to temper it with a genuinely earnest do-good persona as well.
Doom
This is a terrible movie based on a legendary video game series. The treatment of its source material was abysmal, borderline offensive. The onlyâonlyâredeeming quality the film has is it gave Dwayne âThe Rockâ Johnson an excuse to whisper the phrase âbig fucking gunâ in anticipation as he gazed upon the glory of the BFG 9000.
Also, one more point before we (hopefully) never speak of Doom again: rewatching the film for this article made me realize what I think was its fatal flaw. It cast Dwayne âThe Rockâ Johnson, but didnât make him the Doomguy. Why on earth would you anybody think that was a good idea?
Snitch
This is a weird, overwrought movie in which The Rock plays a dad whoâs forced to begin working as an undercover informant in order to reduce his sonâs criminal sentence after heâs arrested for holding a friendâs drug stash. Itâs like Breaking Bad, if Breaking Bad was a movie where Walter White was played by The Rock and wasnât very good. It showed the very clear limits of The Rockâs acting ability when he tries to play a straight-faced serious role in a film also trying to convey a serious sociopolitical message. Directors, take note: that is not what Dwayne âThe Rockâ Johnson is good for.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation
G.I. Joe succeeds where Doom failed. Because this movie realized that The Rock is, essentially, a real-world version of the iconic action figures on which it is based, and played up his superhuman persona as a result. He has a rocky start at the beginning of the film when heâs joking around with with his best bro and fellow Joe Channing Tatum. Once the movie gets down to its silly action sequences, however, The Rock hits his stride. Itâs not quite as good as Transformers, that other modern Hasbro reboot. But itâs pretty darn good. That being said, Iâm left wondering if G.I. Joe, much like Doom, would have had a better shot at reaching Transformers-level stardom if it had put Dwayne âThe Rockâ Johnson in more of a central role from the beginning of its reboot.
Pain & Gain
Speaking of the awesomeness of Transformers, is there any surprise that director Michael Bay managed to bring out The Rockâs greatest theatrical performance to date? Many of Bayâs detractors have derided this movie as the blockbuster-friendly directorâs weak attempt to make an offbeat movie in the style of the Coen brothers, given that its a self-aware darkly humorous movie about a heist that goes terribly wrong. Once again, these critics are wrong. Sure, Bay doesnât have as firm a handle on things like âsubtletyâ and âhumorâ that the creators of Fargo do. But thatâs what makes this movie so greatâitâs borrowing their style, but applying it to the rhythm and bombastic tone of a director who uses screen-filling, city-block-destroying explosions as an essential color in his (admittedly limited) palette. Pain & Gain uses The Rock the same way that Transformers uses Optimus Prime: it plays up the characterâs inherent ridiculousness to truly bizarre, comic proportions. In doing so, Bay also manages to bring out deeper emotions from Dwayne Johnson than I ever thought possible. This is an eccentric, excellent movie, and much of that is thanks to The Rock.
Now: Will Hercules overcome Pain & Gain as The Rockâs best movie? I donât know, but it certainly has all the right ingredients. I will go into the movie theater this weekend with my fingers crossed, and report back to you with what I find.
Illustration by Sam Woolley
To contact the author of this post, write to [email protected] or find him on Twitter at @YannickLeJacq
