Jungle Cruise

 Jungle Cruise (2021)

Starring Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Edgar Ramirez, Jack Whitehall, Jesse Plemons, and Paul Giamatti

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

Written by Michael Green, Glenn Ficcara, and John Requa

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Red Notice

 Red Notice (2021)

Starring Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, Ritu Arya, and Chris Diamatopoulos

Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber

Written by Rawson Marshall Thurber

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Rampage

Rampage (2018)

Starring Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Ackerman, Jake Lacy, Joe Manganiello, Marley Shelton, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Directed by Brad Peyton

Written by Ryan Engle, Carlton Cuse, Ryan J. Condal, and Adam Sztykiel

Click here for my Letterboxd review

There RyMickey Rating:  D

Skyscraper

Skyscraper (2018)

Starring Dwayne Johnson, Neve Campbell, Chin Han, Roland Møller, Pablo Schreiber, McKenna Roberts, and Noah Cottrell

Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber

Written by Rawson Marshall Thurber

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Baywatch

Baywatch (2017)

Starring Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Priyanka Chopra, Alexandra Daddario, Jon Bass, Hannibal Buress, Kelly Rohrbach, Ilfenesh Hadera, Pamela Anderson, and David Hasselhoff

Directed by Seth Gordon

Written by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift

***This film is currently streaming via Amazon Prime and Hulu***

Summary (in 500 words or less): A reimagining of the popular tv series, this "comedy" has a group of lifeguards trying to uncover a ruthless drug ring that's overtaking their beach.

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: D

Movie Review - Central Intelligence

Central Intelligence (2016)

Starring Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Amy Ryan, Danielle Nicolet, Jason Bateman, and Aaron Paul

Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber

***This film is currently available via HBO Now/Go***

Central Intelligence is more enjoyable than it has any right to be thanks to the natural charm and comedic buddy repartee of its two stars Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart.  It's a shame that a better, less generic story couldn't have surrounded the two elevating their chemistry.  Still, they try to make the most of things with a script that has formerly popular high school student Calvin Joyner (Hart) meeting up with formerly unpopular Bob Stone (Johnson) the weekend before their twentieth high school reunion after not having seen each other in those two decades.  Although they weren't close friends, Calvin had helped Bob through a difficult and embarrassing moment and Bob always looked fondly on Calvin because of that.  Through social media, Bob reconnects with Calvin but Calvin soon discovers that the seemingly timid and meek Bob is actually an undercover CIA agent who needs a bit of Calvin's help in solving his latest crime.

Ultimately, the "comedy" aspect of Central Intelligence falls a bit short...and the action side doesn't really do much to buoy it either.  The film works best during its first act as it sets up the relationship between Calvin and Bob with Hart and Johnson playing well off one another in these opening scenes.  Unfortunately, the film doesn't really succeed in creating tension as it progresses so the "superspy" intrigue it tries to muster never really comes to fruition.  However, despite all this, the two stars make this surprisingly watchable and actually end up doing enough to boost this one to slightly above average in the RyMickey rankings.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Movie Review - Moana

Moana (2016)

Featuring the vocal talents of Auli'i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House, Temuera Morrison, Nicole Scherzinger, and Jemaine Clement

Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker

The fact that I watched Moana more than a month ago and am just now getting around to writing a review should tell you something.  It's not that Moana is particularly bad -- I enjoyed it a little bit  more than Frozen and 2016's Zootopia -- but it's so generic that it's a bit difficult to get excited about it.  Nothing about it particularly roused the cinematic corners of my brain despite its nice animation and solid voice acting.

The story of our titular character begins when she is a toddler, fascinated by the ocean, but told by her father and mother (Temuera Morrison and Nicole Scherzinger) that their Hawaiian tribe doesn't venture out into the water.  As she grows older, a now teenage Moana (brightly and confidently voiced by newcomer Auli'i Cravalho) is encouraged by her grandmother (Rachel House) to explore the vast aquatic landscape and when Moana's tribe finds its food supply deteriorating, Moana ventures out on her own to try and help her people.  Along the way, she meets the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) who eons ago stole the heart of island goddess Te Fiti who is systematically going island to island damaging the landscape.  Together Moana and Maui try to help one another tackle Te Fiti and regain stability across the Hawaiian islands.

The most successful aspect to Moana is the voice acting.  Auli'i Cravalho has a gorgeous singing voice, yet imbues Moana with spunk, personality, and charisma.  The titular character would not have been as successful as it is without Cravalho at the vocal helm so kudos to the casting department for finding this unknown.  Coupling that with Dwayne Johnson's hilariously egotistical Maui and the scenes between these two main characters turn into a treat.

Unfortunately, the film itself plays out a little too episodic and generic to feel unique.  The trials and travails of Maui and Moana do little to advance the story, instead they simply feel like individual segments without a cohesive through-line.  (A meet up with a giant crab which takes up a good ten minutes is amusing, as an example, but in the end proves rather fruitless in the grand scheme of things.)  The music by the immensely popular Lin-Manuel Miranda doesn't help advance the story either a la the Menken-Ashman 90s era collaboration that brought us The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.  Miranda's songs are decent -- Moana's yearning (and Oscar-nominated) "How Far I'll Go" and Maui's fun "You're Welcome" being the best -- but in the end, they do little to add depth that we didn't already see.  That being said, Miranda certainly has crafted better tunes here than we saw in Disney's last musical extravaganza Frozen.

There are some incredibly odd editing and directorial choices that harm the film sometimes (and I never find myself saying that about animated films), but overall, despite the somewhat negative tone of this review, Moana works...it just doesn't soar.

The RyMickey Raing:  B-

Movie Review - San Andreas

San Andreas (2015)

Starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, Ioan Gruffudd, Hugo Johnstone-Burt, Art Parkinson, Archie Panjabi, and Paul Giamatti

Direted by Brad Peyton

There's not much to San Andreas except for what we'd expect -- a giant earthquake wreaking mighty havoc over the southern portions of California.  Sure, there are attempts at a little more substantive story -- divorced father and mother (Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino) band together to find their stranded daughter (Alexandra Daddario), earthquake expert (Paul Giamatti) creates a device to predict quakes but no one will listen -- but at the heart of it all, this is simply a flick filled with special effects earthquake mayhem.

The pure special effects-driven nature works for the film's first hour quite well wasting very little time getting into the action and driving the story along from set piece to set piece.  However, as the second hour begins, the idiocy of what we're watching begins to rear its ugly head.  With Giamatti given absolutely nothing to do except hide under desks after spouting warnings similar to "This aftershock will be the biggest one yet!", the film tries to create some form of realistic story behind Johnson and Gugino attempting to find their teenage daughter in the shambles of San Francisco as the two parents are forced to face increasingly ridiculous scenarios.  How will they outrun a collapsing building?  How will their boat make it over the wave of this rising tsunami?  How will they land a helicopter with engine failure?  Seeing the chaos caused by the earthquake in the first hour seemed naturally plausible...seeing two apparent super humans try and rescue their equally superheroic daughter who McGuyvers her way out of quite a few tight spots herself makes the second hour laughable.

For the most part, the actors are game and actually do a nice job of keeping us interested in the action despite the building implausibility.  Johnson and Gugino are a nice match and Daddario more than carries her storyline with the help of British mates she meets along the way played charmingly by Hugo Johnstone-Burt and Art Parkinson.  In the end, San Andreas is about what can be expected, however, the film hurts itself by presenting a surprisingly solid first half only to dive deep into the realm of impossibility in its second half.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - The Other Guys

The Other Guys (2010)

Starring Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes, Michael Keaton, Steve Coogan, Dwayne Johnson, and Samuel L. Jackson

Directed by Adam McKay

I was a pretty big fan of the previous Will Ferrell-Adam McKay collaborations Step Brothers and Anchorman.  Their latest venture The Other Guys doesn't even come close to those previous flicks.  In fact, this 2010 "comedy" is one of the worst movies of last year.

It's true that comedies are perhaps best viewed with a crowd of others.  As the crowd laughs, you can either laugh with them or laugh at them for finding something humorous.  I watched The Other Guys all by my lonesome and while I chuckled once or twice, that's not nearly enough.  In this bumbling odd couple buddy picture, Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg never seem to mesh with one another in the slightest.  In their quest to uncover the mystery behind some Wall Street stock fraud (did that ever sound funny in the writer's room?), their two cop characters grow to realize they're not as different as they thought they once were.

Ferrell is fine here, but he does nothing special and can't garner laughs.  Wahlberg is just horrendous.  His attempts at humor involved yelling everything and opening his eyes really wide to convey frustration and anger -- it just may be one of the worst performances I've seen this year.  The rest of the supporting cast from Eva Mendes to Michael Keaton to Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson as a pair of celebrity-level NYC officers are simply serviceable, but don't add anything to the mix.

All in all, this film wasn't the least bit funny and I contemplated stopping it several times before it was through...I kinda wish I had because I at least would've had an hour to watch something worthwhile.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-

Movie Review - Race to Witch Mountain (2009)

Starring Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, AnnaSophia Robb, Alexander Ludwig, and Ciarán Hinds

Directed by Andy Fickman

I enjoyed this kid pic much more than I probably had a right to...it's not aimed at me at all, but I liked that it was an action flick with moderately exciting sequences and little to no violence. The director managed to work up some tension without ever showing any blood or anyone getting killed. Kudos.

As far as the story goes, an alien spacecraft crashes on Earth and the two human-like passengers (AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig) manage to hitch a ride in the cab of Jack Bruno (played by The Rock...pardon me, Dwayne Johnson). Little does Jack know that the government is after these alien life forms and will stop at nothing to get them.

What helps this movie immensely is the surprisingly good acting by Dwayne Johnson. He's funny when he needs to be, caring when some emotion is necessary, and is willing to kick some PG-rated butt when called upon. He's helped by Carla Gugino who plays a paranormal professor. Gugino is really quite winning in this. Her role is by-the-book, but she brings a little something extra to the table which is much appreciated. The two kids were forced to play their roles in a robotic manner and the girl (Robb) fares a little better than the guy (Ludwig). Nevertheless, both were more than adequate.

Like I said above, I was fairly impressed by the action sequences and I must admit that I enjoyed the ride this movie took me on...even if it was suitable for all ages.

The RyMickey Rating: C+