Tag Archives: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

Black Adam review — Abysmal superhero schlock

November 15, 2022 flawintheiris

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra | Written by Adam Sztykiel, Rory Haines, and Sohrab Noshirvani | 125 min | ▲△△△△ | Netflix As someone who's been writing about movies for more than 15 years, there's a genuine thrill walking out of a movie that's achieved something exceptional, knowing you've just seen one of the best movies… Read More

Free Guy review — Fluffy good times with Ryan Reynolds

August 23, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Shawn Levy | Written by Matt Lieberman and Zak Penn | 115 min | In Cinemas Free Guy is a mild and pleasant surprise. Like so many modern blockbusters, it's imbued with the DNA of a bunch of other, better movies, but it still manages to distinguish itself by being both a big-budget… Read More

Jungle Cruise review — Ersatz adventure gets lost down the river

July 27, 2021 flawintheiris

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra | Written by Glenn Ficarra, John Requa, Josh Goldstein, Michael Green, and John Norville | 128 min | Disney Plus Almost 20 years ago, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's first starring role in a feature was a picture called The Scorpion King, an entertaining spin-off of The Mummy Returns, itself a sequel… Read More

Jumanji: The Next Level review — An OK sequel to a better movie

January 19, 2020 flawintheiris

Directed by Jake Kasdan | Written by Kasdan, Jeff Pinker, and Scott Rosenberg, based on a book by Chris Van Allsburg | 123 min | Netflix Though I'm surprised to find I never wrote it up on this blog, I did see 2017's Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle—I think on an airplane. It's a good… Read More

Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw review — Lots of calories, no nutritional value

August 16, 2019 flawintheiris

Directed by David Leitch | Written by Chris Morgan and Drew Pearce | 137 min | Netflix Makes a lot of sense that the stuntman-turned-filmmaker Leitch (John Wick, Atomic Blonde) would be called to extend the Fast & Furious brand in this spin-off. It features two of the three bullet-headed stars of the globally popular… Read More

Rampage review — Big dumb fun with monsters amok

April 16, 2018 flawintheiris

Directed by Brad Peyton | Written by Ryan Engle, Carlton Cuse, Ryan J. Condal, and Adam Sztykiel | 107 min If there was any doubt at before now, it should be clear today: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is this generation's Arnold Schwarzenegger. He moves effortlessly from comedy to family fare to action movies without breaking… Read More

The Fate Of The Furious review — Pistons pop and fizzle

April 16, 2017 flawintheiris

Directed by F. Gary Gray | Written by Chris Morgan, based on characters by Gary Scott Thompson | 136 min We've been promised a final trilogy of movies to take us across this franchise's finish line—and that we even got this far is kind of amazing. This whole shooting match started as a low-budget exploitation picture,… Read More

San Andreas review — California screaming

May 28, 2015 flawintheiris

Directed by Brad Peyton, Written by Carleton Cuse from a story by Andre Fabrizio and Jeremy Passmore A question came to mind while I took in the trailer for this movie: What distinguishes San Andreas from a previous disaster picture like 2012, beside the fact that Dwayne Johnson is a lot more fun to watch these days than John… Read More

Furious 7 review — More is more, more or less

April 4, 2015 flawintheiris

Directed by James Wan, written by Chris Morgan, from characters by Gary Scott Thompson | Netflix Hot Car: Lykan Hypersport, the $3.4 million supercar. If the successive entries in this increasingly popular franchise have shown us anything it's that more is more. More cars, more stunts, more characters, more arm butter, more slo-mo, more macho attitude,… Read More

Blockbuster Blues 2014: The Good and The Grim Prospects for This Season at The Movies

May 14, 2014 flawintheiris

This summer's blockbuster selection looks pretty dire, I gotta say. In April we had Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Transcendence. This month we've got The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Godzilla and X-Men: Days of Future Past. These are big-budget science fiction and fantasy films, highly anticipated, which make all in the Nerd Nation very happy—and me too. But the first three are… Read More