The key moment in the acting career of Dwayne Johnson is an obvious one that occurs not very long into The Rundown, the 2003 adventure film that paired him with the intermittently watchable Seann William Scott. As Johnson’s character, a “retrieval expert”, walks into a club to collect one of his charges, Arnold Schwarzenegger, playing himself for all we know, tips his hat to Johnson and simply says, “Have fun.” It’s a blessing, first of all, from the undisputed king of action film braggadocio, but as delivered by the Terminator himself, it’s also a warning, a reminder to not take the blows of his career too seriously, especially in an arduous career that will likely involve getting critically lambasted on the regular despite being popular as all get out.
The funny thing is that Johnson has never seemed to struggle in his career, even when his talents have been used for the childish (Planet 51) or the downright reprehensible (Be Cool). Johnson has a crucial sense of humor that Schwarzenegger simply never had, and he has what I guess you might call grace. When he walks into a room, the entire scene doesn’t automatically become about him, his proportions, or his awkward placing amongst so many, well, smaller people. It’s why he was a more-than-suitable replacement for character actor Joe Don Baker in the Walking Tall remake of 2004, and made for a palatable lead in family friendly fare like Tooth Fairy, Race to Witch Mountain, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, and The Game Plan, even if the films themselves were not.
Sadly, the former pro wrestler hulls out all his talent and charm when he goes serious, such as in Snitch, Faster, Doom, and, to a lesser extent, this week’s San Andreas, but such overtly macho fantasias are ostensibly balanced out by a handful of more audacious projects, some expertly crafted action-comedies, and his exemplary work in the last three Fast & Furious films. Those are the films I wanted to put special attention towards in discussing the action star’s career and where it might be going, especially considering his upcoming, hugely promising HBO series Ballers, and plan to play Black Adam in Shazam, either of which could prove to broaden his already substantial reach as a performer.
The Scorpion King
Like most movies, The Mummy shouldn’t have bore a sequel, let alone two and a spin-off that spawned three sequels. The Mummy Returns is so deeply convoluted and heinously written that the film didn’t even allow for the cheap thrills and action-adventure fireworks that made the original film so enjoyable. The Scorpion King adheres more to the “let’s have some fun” model of The Mummy, and a great deal of what makes the knowingly dim-witted desert adventure work is Johnson’s ability to segue from action-hero speechifying to comical exchanges, calling on his studied sense of comic timing. The direction, courtesy of Chuck Russell, is competent, even if the script isn’t, which puts The Scorpion King in more reasonable guilty pleasure territory than a recent, similar project of Johnson’s, the unwatchable Hercules.
Southland Tales
In the aughts, Richard Kelly was responsible for three of the most daring and original science-fiction works of the last two decades, including Donnie Darko, The Box, and this inimitable, outlandish satirical masterpiece. As Boxer Santaros, an amnesia-stricken action star tasked with saving the world, Johnson swings for the fences both in his distinct delivery and in his physicality, and he sinks his teeth into every outrageous word Kelly wrote. Kelly’s film is a massive, winking put-on, a furious critique of modern consumerism and Bush-era America, and a wildly inventive, knowingly nonsensical science fiction romp all at once, anchored by a cast that includes everyone from Amy Poehler and Justin Timberlake to Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jon Lovitz to Mandy Moore and Seann William Scott. In another world, Kelly would be the go-to helmer to spice up otherwise intolerably self-serious sci-fi fare like Oblivion or Surrogates, and Johnson would be the commanding, muscular jester at the center of his court.
Fast & Furious
The Fast & Furious franchise is frankly an anomaly: a big, stunt-driven action tent pole that actually has grown increasingly better with each installment, though not exactly at the rate one might want. A major reason for the series growing far more fun and interesting is Johnson’s Hobbs, a gigantic DEA legend who goes hunting for Dom and the gang in Fast Five, only to quickly become one of their most trusted allies in the last two films. Whereas Vin Diesel and the late Paul Walker get the hammier and more sentimental lines, Hobbs is all business, a death-defying agent of righteous chaos. In this, he’s the perfect reflection of what the Fast & Furious series does well, which is to say kick ass, take names, and chew bubblegum without stopping to remind everyone how important family is to a substantive life of street racing and punching people.
Pain & Gain
And just like that, Michael Bay became an interesting director. Sure, The Rock and Armageddon are humongous entertainments, entirely worthy of faint praise, but also with lively, vast casts of fascinating performers. Without Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery, The Rock isn’t nearly as exciting or funny, and Armageddon would just be a whole lot of Bruce Willis-Ben Affleck machismo if not for galvanizing supporting turns from Billy Bob Thornton, Steve Buscemi, and the late Michael Clarke Duncan. With Pain & Gain, however, Bay finally found a way to sync his erratic, overblown style to the true story of three macho hacks kidnapping a Florida millionaire. The most absurd of the bunch is Johnson’s Paul Doyle, a Catholic ex-con who backslides into his old criminal ways, including rampant cocaine use, guns, and blackmail. Johnson clearly relishes the cartoonish acts and dialogue that his character is addicted to, suggesting, as in Southland Tales, that he has yet to fully reveal the breadth of his abilities as an actor and physical performer.
The Rundown
Long before Peter Berg became a proliferator of the most offensive, tinny depictions of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines in action, he was a talented, borderline ambitious craftsman of genre work-outs. The Rundown, which pits Johnson against Scott in a run-through-the-jungle buddy plot, would likely qualify as Berg’s most purely satisfying picture: a lean, funny, and exquisitely paced actioner that features such gems as Johnson facing off with a wily, villainous Christopher Walken and mildly romancing Rosario Dawson in a dingy jungle bar. This is exactly the kind of film where Johnson thrives, taking lead but not overplaying his hand the way many former action stars have out of pure ego. More importantly, he evinces genuine charisma throughout the film, rather than simply relying on his muscles, good lucks, and stunt training. Indeed, unlike the glut of scripts he chooses to take, Johnson has a personality that shines through the dullness of his character, one that becomes all the more evident when he marries off a devoted fan or gives Saturday Night Live the equivalent of a B12 shot.