Review: The Rock as a Hard Place

Sorry, but I really love this trash, even as I grasp why more of the world hates us every day. The Scorpion King is as American a film as anything the Duke might have made, an astonishing mish-mash of digital effects, hip-hop, kung fu, Mighty Mouse,Indiana Jones, the Mummy (and his Return -- from which the idea for this enthusiastically stupid movie was spawned), and the World Wrestling Federation, to whom the film owes its star and its theatrical notions of head-butting machismo. If they ever give an Oscar for lacerations, grunts and thumps, this one is a runaway favorite. Or as the Rock says about 100 hundred times in the movie, "Live Free, Die Well." If you need escapist entertainment from your hyper teched-up lives, this is the movie for you. If the Rock can survive tyrants, thieves, traitors, arrows, impalement, knives, spears, swords, sandstorms, fire, poison, snakes and killer ants, you can get through a boring day at work.

It seems oxymoronic to bother with plot lines in a movie like this. The Rock plays an Akkadian assassin named Mathayus who takes 20 blood rubies to go kill the sorceress (Kelly Hu) who advises the barbarian warlord Memnon (Steven Brand) on battle strategy and is thus revered by his vicious marauding armies. Boy, is this Memnon a mean leader. He butchers women and kids, destroys civilizations and plays headgames with his sorceress. Digital effects have conjured up many strands of marauding armies, but all of them look the same, like ants in battle-armor racing across a barren plain with angry clouds swirling overhead.

It's hard to imagine any human, even the Rock, taking the drubbing he takes in this movie. The Duke was a wuss in comparison. He's buried in sandstorms, tossed off of parapets, run over by wagons,and stabbed, sliced, shot (by arrows) and gored countless times. On top of all that, he has to watch helplessly while Memnon butchers his brother. The Sorceress, on the other hand, turns out to be a babe who strolls around in thongs, does kung fu, and relates instantly to the Rock's sophisticated style of combat and international diplomacy. The Sorceress makes it clear that she loses her powers if she ever has sex. You'll never guess what happens.

The hip-hop background in a movie allegedly set in ancient Babylon is pretty neat. And in one of the oddest roles of his or any actor's career, Michael Clarke Duncan (The Green Mile) plays another lummox, the Nubian King/Warrior Balthazar. He's almost as big as Rock, and the early confrontation between the two conjures up those great dinosaur battles in Jurassic Park. This role gives Clarke, who is way too good an actor for this, the chance to wear dreads and spout all sorts of racial jokes at the Rock, whose face seems locked either amusement or anger throughout the entire 88 minute movie.

The digital effects are cheesy, almost throwaways, and the film's makers have no illusions about the Rock's acting skills, so he starts fighting almost from the opening shot and keeps on fighting to the end. I have to say I had fun watching this silliness. It's such an American fusion of different cultural styles, and it's so undemanding a movie, that you leave the theater smiling and relaxed. And the kids who thronged the theater where I saw it loved it, whooping and laughing throughout. The humorless censors loose in the land don't need to worry about the sensitivities of the American adolescent. They can take a movie like this, and see just how silly and cartoonish it is.

Comments

Re:When...

[dustym]

"This spoiled my day." I do not like these reviews as much as the next guy, but if this spoiled your day you need to get a life, seriously. If it is really that terrible, then get off your ass and make a movie review site and do it yourself. Or do not read the shit at all. dustym

The Rock vs. Shakespeare

[Mulletproof]

The 16th century had Shakespeare as their form of entertainment and we, sadly have WWF and the Rock here in the 21st. About the only incentive I have for seeing SK is Kelly Hu... Mmmmmm... Kelly... But it'll be a slighty frosty day in hell before I acually pay to see it.

Re:The Rock vs. Shakespeare

[John_Booty]

I love Shakespeare and I loved this movie, too. don't forget the Shakespeare was popular entertainment back in its day, too- it was entertainment for the masses.

Shakespearian plays were full of sleeping around, romantic mixups, stabbing, and comic mischief. As wonderfully-crafted as most of his tales were, as as witty as the dialogue was they're not exactly the most sophisticated/complex things things in the world.

So, the gap between Shakespeare and enjoyable trash like this movie isn't as far as you might thing. Personally, having seen many of Shakespeare's plays, I think most people think they're "sophisticated" just because they're in old English.

Need evidence? Look at any Shakespearian translation set in modern times, performed in modern English....

So what's the hubbub?

[zaren]

This movie is a spin-off of The (Brendan Frasier) Mummy movies, which were an astounding bit of escapism, broken plot lines, unreality, fantasy, and general making-stuff-up-as-you-go-along-ishness... and Rocky was in the Returns movie anyway. I don't recall either of those movies trying too hard to be classics of American cinema. So what's the problem with this one being more of the same?

-----
Aww, FCSK!

Rock vs Larry King Live

[deputydink]

from the april 20th edition of larry king live

notice the subtlety at which larry navigates through the trying events of our time.

Larry - Do you consider yourself an actor or a wrestler?
Rock - Uh. Well, i act and i wrestle, so i guess i'd be both.
Larry - Nice, nice. Were you sad when Owen Hart passed away?
Rock - Uh. Well, yes i was.
Larry - Nice, nice. Now tell me about 9-11.
Rock - Uh. Well, it was really terrible.
Larry - Yes. That it was. [pause] The movie is the Scorpio King by universal. The man, Dwayne Johnson. We'll be back in a moment.

This proves Larry King is still in posession of journalisms' most inappropriate (and strangly unconfortable) seugeways.

The rest of the hour long interview has a slightly confused Rock answering (well, i might add) a string of strange, offtopic questions about race, wrestling, Republicanism and Arnold Schwarzenegger fired off by the perpetually half-asleep larry king.

Classic.

The cnn review is here.

Re:I need a lesson in social studies...

[Catbeller]

Da Masta sayeth:

The Rock plays an Acadian assassin

Correct me if I'm wrong but Acadian would be like french-canadians in the maritimes, right? Unless the Rock does dress up like Anne of Green Gables and shouts "mange de la merde" as insults, this is not the same ethnic background as the Rock's character. So is the a typical JonKatz f*ckup, or is there some other race with the same name? Some background info on them would be nice too...

Accipiter sayeth:

It's actually Akkadian.

So yes, it's the typical Jon Katz fuck-up.

Jon Katz actually saideth:

It seems oxymoronic to bother with plot lines in a movie like this. The Rock plays an Akkadian assassin named Mathayus

Well, apparently Da Masta and Accipiter, it is actually you who seem to be the fuck-ups. What is this we-hate-Katz thing? What is this, Aint-It-Cool-News? Does he offend your political sensibilities or something?

Ad hominem, it ain't just for Clinton anymore!