Review: Leave this 'Marine' behind
Posted Wednesday, January 31, 2007 at 11:52 AM Central
by John Couture
Someone better check the calendar. After watching The Marine I felt like I was stuck in a time machine watching Arnold Schwarzenegger's Commando over and over again.
To say that the plot is a retread would be doing justice to the story of a marine being unfairly dismissed from the service only to return home and find that his wife has been kidnapped by the bad guys.
Insert plenty of action and huge explosions and there's your movie. You know going in that this movie has a better chance of winning a Razzie than an Oscar, but you at least want something, anything, fresh.
WWE wrestler John Cena brings his "acting chops" from professional wrestling, er sports entertainment, to the big screen and while his fans will rejoice in watching The Marine over and over again while they shoot back a few PBRs, the average movie fan won't miss much if they skip this one.
The one bright spot in the movie is the venerable Robert Patrick who seems to understand fully that he's in the quintessential 1980s action exploitation flick and he just oozes evil from every pore. It's a role that he good at and does bring back a little credibility that was lost when you cast a wrestler in the main role.
The DVD's offerings are pretty complete. At least one can hope. I really would loathe the idea of a two-disc special edition, or god forbid a 10 year anniversary edition.
The disc contains two cuts of the film, both the theatrical cut and the new unrated version. To be honest, will anyone that buys this disc ever watch the theatrical cut?
The one bonus feature that stood out was the Camp Pendleton stuff from the world premiere. In this day and age, it's never a bad thing to include anything related to the military. It was nice to see the reaction of the movie from this small subsection of the armed forces.
Beyond that, most of the extra content centers on beefy wrestler John Cena which, let's face it, is really the only selling point of this movie. The quirky featurette "Cena's Aussie Day Off" will be a must see from any die hard WWE or Cena fan.
In the end, the movie is barely watchable and the only reason it was elevated from its intended B movie status was the inclusion of Cena. So, if you have no idea who John Cena is, I would steer clear.
The main problem with the Unrated DVD edition of The Marine is how to craft a product in such a way as to overcome the vastly sub-standard product that is the movie. The loaded edition comes close to making the movie watchable, but ultimately falls just short.
