When it comes to movies, January never ceases to disappoint. Known as the barren wasteland of the movie calendar, January is packed with the movies that were even too bad to make the Christmas elementary-school break rush. Far from the radar of any Oscar nomination, these movies are bland and uninspiring, and usually far erased from everyone’s memory in time for the crop of Valentine’s Day’s rom-com’s. And outside of a terrible looking Denzel Washington movie (The Book of Eli), an even worse-looking Dennis Quaid movie (Legion), and a laughably terrible-looking Jackie Chan movie (The Spy Next Door), it might be a great idea to hold on to those Cineplex gift cards you got at Christmas until February.
But wait, hold the phone Mabel! Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson has returned to put the Rock Bottom on this boring movie month. Following up on his last big hit, involving him playing a ruthless football player granted with the task of taking care of his young daughter, Dwayne shows his versatility by playing a ruthless hockey player granted with the task of becoming a tooth fairy after telling his young daughter that Tooth Fairies don’t exist. Wrangled into this early Golden Globe Nominee were Julie Andrews and Billy Chrystal, no doubt owing the producers either a big favour or a large sum of money.
One upside to this is, as an avid hockey fan, I do adore watching American movies where they butcher my beloved game. My guess is that if you go to this, you’ll see the Jason-style goalie mask, game-stopping body checks that will lead to an instant goal, maybe even a puck hit so hard, it’ll knock out a ref. It would actually be funny to see Dwayne play hockey, because I’m sure like every good Californian athlete, he never stepped foot on ice before in his life. But other than if you’re dating a 12-year old (and shame on you if you are), I can’t think of a reason why you’d even go to this movie.
The Rock’s fall into the Cuba Gooding Jr. realm of really bad children’s movies is a very sad one for me personally. Around the new millennium, the Rock was one of the best things that happened to the (then) WWF. Electrifying, charismatic, and hilariously boisterous, The Rock was a force whenever he was put into the ring. Not the best wrestler, he made simple movies absolutely explosive (anyone who played any of the WWF wrestling games knows that the People’s Elbow was one of the deadliest moves in the game, although being nothing more than a standing elbow drop). He was always hammy, but I don’t think he got a fair chance in real movies. He was quickly relegated to b-movies and kiddy-slapstick. But one thing you can get from the trailer is that he seems to be enjoying himself terribly. And hey, he’s one of the few wrestlers-gone-movie stars that can actually string a sentence together- the last one that could do that became governor. Dwayne Johnson to replace California Senator Arnie? You heard it here first.
It’s a silly-looking kids movie, for silly looking kids. We as a whole can probably avoid it, and none of us will be poorer for it. If you need a fix of The Rock, wait until the summer, where he’s in a movie with the likes of Will Ferrel, Sameul L. Jackson and Marky Mark Wahlberg. The Tooth Fairy drills its way into your skull on January 22.
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