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Review: The Rock as a Hard Place
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.
all your base are belong to us.
Isn't John Katz participating in the Totally Failed Slashdot Blackout (TFSB)?
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
This is the first post!!!!!!!!!!
Post #1!!!
maybe?
....did Slashdot become a movie review site? For bad movies? Why do I have to suffer through seeing a crappy movie review at the top of the list when I check out slashdot on Sunday morning.
Why does this guy have free reign to publish whatever he wishes on this site? Does he own half of it or something? This spoiled my day.
Um, duh, I am retarded.
This film is just another example of the ongoing "smackdown" of American culture that we are experiencing.
Thanks Katz, for your valuable feedback! I bet you voted for Bush!
eah, it's over now
but i can breathe somehow
when it's all worn out
i'd rather go without
you know it's been on my mind
could you stand right here
look me straight in the eye and say
that it's over now
we pay our debt sometime
well it's over now
yet i can see somehow
when it's all gone wrong
it's hard to be so strong
we pay our debt sometime
guess it's over now
i seem alive somehow
when it's out of sight
just wait and do your time
you know it's been on my mind
could i stand right here
look myself in the eyes, and say
that it's over now
we pay our debt sometime
fuck you klerck!
Funny, i don't follow what your'e bitching about!
Shit, how do i shut this little fucker off!!!
seriously.
http://slashdot.org/search.pl?query=drubbing+&op=s tories
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Remember on April Fools Day last, a supposedly fake
announcement was made that advertisements would be
interspersed with regular slashdot articles?
Well... the real joke was that it was no joke.
Nearly all commercial publications include paid
adverts masquerading as legitimate news stories.
Is this one of them?
I do not hate Americans. I wonder how a whole nation can live in such blissful ignorance. I wonder whether there is a way to prevent WWIII from being caused by Bush and his type. I am afraid when I visit the U.S. I am annoyed that the most ignorant people are also the loudest, most arrogant and powerful.
Katz, the world doesn't hate the United States. You confuse all the rhetoric and jokes and irritation that the world has with the United States for hatred.
The truth of the matter is no matter what others say about the "ugly American" stereotype, it is just a stereotype. Even in the most unfriendly parts of the world, say North Korea, or Iraq, most of the people there would not lift a finger to hurt an American. They would be friendly, eager to talk, probably even give you part of their dinner. That is not hatred!
But that attitude extends not only towards individual Americans, but also towards the entire country. The United States is not unversally viewed as a bully or belligerent country. The US is seen more often than not as the only party that can intervene in regional conflicts without taking sides. The US is seen as a country that loves freedom, and has a lot of opportunity for poor people to improve themselves. The US is seen as a country that is very rich, but also very generous with that wealth if another country needs it because of natural disaster. The US is respected for strength, but not feared. For a good example of how power CAN be feared, take a look at the Israelis and the Palistinians who mutually fear each other.
Some might hate us enough to fly planes into our buildings, but probably 250,000,000 times as many would never do something like that. Now, we can't sit on our asses and say "the world loves us" because if we do that then they will REALLY start to not like us. But we must realize that the world does NOT hate us, and we must not use that as an excuse to either withdraw from the world and all the good we could do in it, or to develop some sort of national neurosis about the rest of the world.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.