No-one really dies in The Marine. The film starts in an active warzone, features corpses being eaten by alligators and villains being gunned down, but the super-fast cuts never manage to capture bullets hitting heads or knives slicing into henchmen. Even when people don't die, there's remarkably little blood in the fistfights. This is a movie where headbutting someone in the nose doesn't draw blood, and smashing a glass bottle over a man's head leaves no visible impact at all. The Marine is an action movie, but it's a squeamish one.
It's mainly notable nowadays for being the film debut of John Cena, the multi-time WWE champion turned movie star. And while his likeable charisma is there, this is not a great start. The Marine is fast-moving and action-packed, but it's riddled with plot holes, cliches and it's so desperate to get a 12A rating, that it never feels like there's any danger. Cena absolutely pummels the living daylights out of people, but it never looks like it hurts.
Plus, we can't escape the elephant in the room; the WWE. The logo for 'WWE Films' takes centre stage before the credits roll and in many ways, this movie feels like they translated 2006 WWE onto the screen. Having moved away from the sex and violence of the Attitude Era, the company became more family-friendly and that censor-proofing reluctance to upset anyone is exactly what we get here. This is an eighties-style action throwback but with all the grit removed, the Indiana Jones movies have more blood than this.
The explosions look amazing though, I'll give them that. The production team make a detonating petrol station look fantastic. Robert Patrick has an absolute whale of a time and the joke about The Terminator is fun. The rest of it feels like a movie that Vince McMahon would laugh and cheer along with, while the rest of the cinema sits in awkward silence, thinking about leaving but deciding not to because Kane is stood by the exit.
It's mainly notable nowadays for being the film debut of John Cena, the multi-time WWE champion turned movie star. And while his likeable charisma is there, this is not a great start. The Marine is fast-moving and action-packed, but it's riddled with plot holes, cliches and it's so desperate to get a 12A rating, that it never feels like there's any danger. Cena absolutely pummels the living daylights out of people, but it never looks like it hurts.
Plus, we can't escape the elephant in the room; the WWE. The logo for 'WWE Films' takes centre stage before the credits roll and in many ways, this movie feels like they translated 2006 WWE onto the screen. Having moved away from the sex and violence of the Attitude Era, the company became more family-friendly and that censor-proofing reluctance to upset anyone is exactly what we get here. This is an eighties-style action throwback but with all the grit removed, the Indiana Jones movies have more blood than this.
The explosions look amazing though, I'll give them that. The production team make a detonating petrol station look fantastic. Robert Patrick has an absolute whale of a time and the joke about The Terminator is fun. The rest of it feels like a movie that Vince McMahon would laugh and cheer along with, while the rest of the cinema sits in awkward silence, thinking about leaving but deciding not to because Kane is stood by the exit.