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Review: The Rock as a Hard Place

Posted by JonKatz on from the slugging-it-out-with-the-Scorpion-King dept.

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.

18 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. movies and Jon Katz by 56ker · · Score: 3, Funny

    Reading this review makes me think of "If you don't want to see it you don't have to go" - then I realised that applied to a Jon Katz review too!

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    Video Game cheats, hints a
  2. I need a lesson in social studies... by Da+Masta · · Score: 5, Funny

    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...

    1. Re:I need a lesson in social studies... by Accipiter · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's actually Akkadian.

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

      --

      -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
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    2. Re:I need a lesson in social studies... by IanA · · Score: 5, Informative

      it was spelled wrong originally; Katz changed it after realizing his mistake

  3. What was Katz expecting? by Ryn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Was he expecting a well-written script, historically accurate, with dull brainteasers that would appeal to some british aristocrate?
    I had fun watching the movie. It was a good ass-kicker. Light plot, lots of nice action. However, the director was under influence of G. Lucas, because Jar Jar Binks has made his other appearance in the movie, this time played by a stupid human.

  4. i formatting by Ronin441 · · Score: 4, Funny
    >i>

    And if you screwed up your formatting, well, you should have hit Preview...
    1. Re:i formatting by Ronin441 · · Score: 4, Informative

      OK; I guess my joke is deeply inobvious now, but when the story first went up, there was a tag improperly closed in the first paragraph, with >i> instead of ; meaning that the entire rest of the story was in italics.

      Unlike us plebs, of course, editors have the power to silently fix their typos. :-)

  5. Rocky Rocky by WildBeast · · Score: 3, Funny

    Are you criticizing the most electrifying man in sports entertainment? Know your role, jabroni :)

  6. Katz using the royal "we"? by s1r_m1xalot · · Score: 5, Funny
    Sorry, but I really love this trash, even as I grasp why more of the world hates us every day.

    Either Katz is starting to use the royal we by the end of that sentence or he spelled "me" in a funny way. ;-)

  7. So what's the hubbub? by zaren · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

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    Aww, FCSK!

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    Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
  8. tyrants, thieves, traitors by xlurker · · Score: 4, Funny


    If the Rock can survive tyrants, thieves, traitors, ....

    in Hollywood, the WWF or the movie .... ?

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    ______________________________________________
    sigamajig...
  9. Katz & The Rock: Birds of a Feather by Nova+Express · · Score: 5, Funny
    "Sorry, but I really love this trash"



    Indeed.



    The sad truth is, in the imposter derby, The Rock is a better at pretending to be an actor than Jon Katz is at pretending to be a writer...

    --
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  10. Your homework for tonight... by Mulletproof · · Score: 3, Funny

    And that's the thing that scares me... Will kids be reading WWF as part of their history lessons in 2153? Say it ain't so.... "And today we will be studying the 'Smackdown period', 1995-2004" Uhhggg...

    --
    You need a FREE iPod Nano
  11. You need a lesson in being less of a hypocrite by EvilAlien · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Is that sorta of like how we Canadians are incessantly snobbish and arrogant about how much we know about everywhere else? Maybe its because our own history (and current politics) are incredibly boring. "Of course you yanks" is just the kind of disgusting overgeneralization that you are whining about, yet somehow its ok when its a rant about the US? We sit around and stagnate with our high taxes and bitch at the Americans while they grow and prosper and build a military to protect our asses along with theirs in case the unthinkable happens and someone attacks North America. Yet we conveniently and transparently take advantage of the non-obvious benefits of what the US has produced, such as the Internet (yes it started there, no they didn't do it alone, but you'd better give them the credit for it). Why aren't you posting this on a Canadian site, hypocrite?

    WWF is hella lame.

    The Rock is hella lame.

    This review is hella lame.

    The Scorpian King is hella lame.

    But at least its not "Men with Brooms".

    --
    perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
  12. Haven't seen the movie, but... by Jerf · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    Let's me guess... she has oral sex with the Rock and stains her blue thongs, which is the smoking gun the Authorities of Magic need to bring her up on charges of improper conduct, for which the penalty is the immediate impeachment of her magical powers. But in an emergency highly publicized session before the Gods and Goddesses of Magic, makes an impassioned plea based on questiong what the definition of "is" is, and manages to get off the hook when it is determined that nobody in fact gives a damn what a Sorceress does in her private life, thus letting her have sex AND keep her powers.

    Am I close?

  13. Re:The Rock vs. Shakespeare by John_Booty · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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....

    --

    OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
  14. Is it just me or.... by efuseekay · · Score: 3, Funny

    it is that I look forward to every Jon Katz article just to watch the (much more entertaining) Katz-bashing posts? :)

    Let the feeding frenzy begin!

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    Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
  15. Funny movie review of Scorpion King by tenzig_112 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Scorpion King Wows Moviegoers, Closeted Homosexuals

    If you ever thought pro-wrestling was a bit too macho not to be gay, read this article:
    http://www.ridiculopathy.com/news_detail .php?id=55 2
    an older one on the same subject:
    http://www.ridiculopathy.com/news_detail .php?id=4