Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

a_chinn Workmanlike action movie from WWE Films serves as an unoriginal and routine action vehicle for wrestler John Cena. Diamond thief Robert Patrick and his crew kidnap Cena's wife, which leads to the recently discharged marine chasing after Patrick and company through the backwoods of South Carolina. The action is competently produced and Cena is a decent enough of actor in a retro 80s musclebound action hero sort of way (i.e Stallone, Arnold, JCVD, etc.), which is a low bar, but as with those action heroes, he does have undeniable charisma, which he surely honed in the squared circle of the WWE. Overall, "The Marine" is nothing to go out of your way to see, but if you're in the mood for something that seems like a more bombastic version of "Walking Tall" it's not all that bad.

stormhawk2018 The Marine was one of the first films to be solely produced by WWE Studios, and it features one of the WWE's biggest stars John Cena. In an effort to cash-in on Cena's popularity, they decided to have him attempt to act in a loud, obnoxious, silly action film. The result is likely just about what you'd expect. Cena plays John Triton, a Marine, who begins the film on a mission. Ignoring a direct order to hold back, Triton rushes head-first into a combat zone, and frees prisoners who were about to be executed. His reward is a swift discharge from the Marine Corps. Not being able to cope with his home-life, he and his wife Kate (Kelly Carlson, "Nip/Tuck") decide to pack their things and leave. Where do they want to go? It doesn't matter. His wife is quickly captured while John is inside of a gas station. She waits in the car, and as criminals pull up, led by a man named Rome (Robert Patrick, T-1000 in "Terminator 2", but powerless), a police car also pulls up. The criminals feel threatened, and they disable the officers inside, and steal John's girl. They also blow up the gas station for good measure, but John manages to survive the explosion and begin chasing them. This is what the rest of the film consists of: explosions and chase sequences. John is now a man on a mission, as he loves his wife, and will stop at nothing to rescue her. He survives countless encounters with the criminals, and doesn't sustain any serious damage at any point of the film. This ends up being one of the film's many problems. Action films don't exactly have a history of being anywhere close to realistic, and The Marine is no exception. One of the things that separates, say, Die Hard, from The Marine, is the way their heroes actually feel the effects of the action scenes they are in. If John McClane is thrown to the ground, or punched in the face, he feels is. Conversely, John Triton doesn't seem to feel anything. Even an explosion, set off almost directly beside him, doesn't faze him. He's seemingly impervious to any real damage, and it makes it really hard to make it empathize with him. The other problem the film has is in its hand-to-hand combat scenes. They use a fast-cut type of editing, meaning that with every punch, the camera shifts or shakes. You don't get to see much of the actual fisticuffs, and this seems odd for a film starring a professional wrestler. If there's one thing Cena should be able to do--as he certainly isn't a good actor--it should be that he can fight, or at least fake it. He's used to throwing punches at people, and this type of editing is completely unnecessary, unless of course the fight scenes looked terrible without it. If nothing else, at least "The Marine" can say it doesn't take itself too seriously. Or, at least, its secondary cast doesn't. John Cena thinks this is the most serious project ever made, and is determined to keep a serious face throughout the film. The other actors, the ones who are actually film actors, all seemed to know what the film was--a joke made to quickly make money off John Cena's success. Even the dialogue of the film makes it seem like it is trying to be as silly as possible. In the opening scene, after Cena rescues a trapped soldier, they come across a group of terrorists. The soldier asks John how they are going to get around the terrorists. John replies with the incredibly predictable and cheesy, "We don't. We go through them." There are many more moments in the film like this, where, even if you haven't seen the film, you will be able to predict the next line of dialogue. It's like it was all written as quickly as possible, with the writers attempting to see how many hilarious lines they could get away with. Unfortunately, The Marine doesn't quite venture into the "so bad it's good" territory. That was the only hope it had at being a watchable film, and it didn't quite make it that far. It comes close, and seemingly made a valiant effort, but it just wasn't quite bad enough to be a riot while watching it. You can't laugh at all of it, largely because of how serious Cena plays his role, and it loses a lot of its potential fun at this point. For a film that's sole purpose was to give wrestling fans a 90 minute film of John Cena blowing things up, I suppose that The Marine served its purpose. As a film, taken out of that context, it is quite bad. The plot is simplified, the acting is poor and the action scenes are not all that well-made. Hardcore John Cena fans are the target audience, and they're also the only ones (open-minded viewers, I think) that are likely to get entertainment from "The Marine". And even then, I'm not so sure.P.S.: How this movie scored over a 4% is beyond me.

crewegaylepetrou John Cena is portrayed as some next up terminator in this film. Back then it was WWE's way of portraying Cena as a superhero (even nowadays).The first scene of the film, Cena is in Iraq where he is a one man army against the Taliban.There's a part where this guy survives an explosion in the gas station scene. I'm wondering how is he still alive from this as there are hardly any scars or marks on him as well as him getting up so quickly. Another scene was him in a police car as his wife is kidnapped by these bank robbers so he chases after them. Two of the bank robbers fire at him, but they can't manage to hit this guy. They only shoot the police car's. The car soon begins to go up in flames and then Cena jumps out for the car to then explode. This makes Cena land in the river. Next, Cena battles the robbers again and they manage to escape some next up house. One of the guys shoot a gas pipe for it to then explode the whole house. Guess what, "Super Cena survives that by jumping out with another huge explosion.After, Cena jumps onto a truck for where his wife is on, then gets hit by a bunch of wooden houses. SO UNREALISTIC. The summary is that "Super Cena" is not a superhero in this film and he'll never be an action film legend.

MaximumMadness I would like to clarify up front that my rather high 8 out of 10 score is not reflective of the quality of the film. No, when it comes to the basic facets of film as a medium, "The Marine" is a complete and utter failure. Boasting mixed-bag acting, lousy cliché-ridden writing, laughable special effects and bizarrely over-the-top direction... this film fails as an honest attempt at crafting an action-flick.However, in being such an overt failure, it succeeds in another way- it becomes highly entertaining as a modern example of that beloved term "So bad, it's good." This is one of the most wonderfully entertaining camp classics of the past few decades in my humble opinion. Right up there with "The Room", "Birdemic" and the infamously poor "Batman & Robin." And it is because of that extreme unintentional-entertainment value that I give it the 8 out of 10 rating. It's wonderfully bad.The film stars WWE "Superstar" John Cena, portraying ex-Marine John Triton, who has recently been discharged following a messy mission in which he disobeyed direct orders. His attempts at finding peace with his wife Kate (Kelly Carlson) are rudely interrupted however, when criminal mastermind Rome (Robert Patrick) and his goons end up kidnapping Kate. And so Triton is off, on a personal vendetta of vengeance as he tries to save his wife... which he accomplishes through increasingly hilariously over-the-top action sequences and explosions.First things first, there are some things this film does well. While the action is mainly silly and unrealistic, some of Cena's fight sequences are well-done, and his in-ring experience gives him physical charisma in his role. And Robert Patrick makes for a deliciously hate-able villain whose just too much fun on-screen.But really, that's where the "quality" ends and the wonderful camp- factor begins.From the opening credits- a hilariously over-the-top "patriotic" bit of animation of Triton giving a superhuman-speed salute atop a massive American flag- you know this film is either trying way too hard or not hard enough... it's hard to tell, but suffice to say, the unintentional laughs begin to pile on instantly.The ludicrous scripting brings about a lot of awkward moments, including a bizarre molestation/"Deliverance"-joke that's so out of left field, it's horrifying and funny for all the wrong reasons. And admittedly one really fun jab at co-star Robert Patrick's famed role from "Terminator 2."Direction courtesy John Bonito is a blast for reasons he clearly didn't intend. Bonito just doesn't seem to grasp the concept of subtle storytelling, instead trading it in for a constant onslaught of goofy slow-motion shots and a growing number of explosions that get so ludicrous in number and scope, it's like viewing a Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular from Hell. The constant nature of the explosions becomes so hilarious, you could easily turn it into a drinking game and get well-and-plastered, because I'm not joking- just about ever other scene ends with a massive fireball explosion.Add to that cringe-worthy dialog (just wait till you hear the "Rock Candy" exhange), wonky CGI, bad effects work and some really laughably bad performances by supporting actors, and you have a recipe for disaster.But somehow (I'm guessing because of the entertainingly-bad explosions and action), that disaster becomes a beautiful visage of camp- awfulness.I give "The Marine" an 8 out of 10 just for the rampant laughs it supplies audiences. (Albeit unintentionally.) One of those films you pop on with friends and beer and enjoy while making fun of it for 90 minutes.