Welcome to the Jungle
Review by Clint Morris
 If anyone needs any more
substantiation that The Rock – better known outside the wrestling arena
as plain-old Dwayne Johnson – is the man tipped to replace ostensibly
retired Arnold Schwarzenegger as the screen’s modern day action hero,
keep your eyes peeled to the right of the screen in a scene that takes
place two minutes into Welcome to the Jungle.
Yep, that’s the Terminator himself walking
past the bronzed Rock, telling him to “have fun”.
It all might have played out rather
artlessly – and according to the grapevine the cameo was worked in on
the spot – but there’s a lot more to that scene than meets the eye.
In fact, that’s Arnold giving 'The Scorpion
King' his blessing to take over his throne. And from the sounds of the
chatter around tinseltown, The Rock’s already been sworn in. So does
the big guy have what it takes to be the next hulking Terminator though?
In a word 'Yes', but only because such a job
doesn’t require a lot. Like a lot of Schwarzenegger’s vehicles, Welcome
to the Jungle isn’t a great movie. Not by any standards.
There’s a lot of biffo, barrages of bullets and quick quips – not
unlike Arnie’s finest – but at the end of the day, that’s really about
all that’s on offer.
Then again, what Schwarzenegger understudy
would need to occupy much more of a film?
In it, The Rock plays a bounty hunter dying
to escape the world he works in to do something a little more normal,
like open us his own restaurant. “You deliver my boy back here, you
bring him right through that door, and you walk out of this house a
free man.”
His boss’s proposition is an attractive one,
so Beck hops a plane to Brazil to bring back absconder Travis (whose
apparently “pissed off the wrong people” at home) back to L.A.
Unfortunately, the youngster ain’t going to come easy.
And there’s a few hurdles in the big man’s
way preventing him from simply picking up the cheeky chap and throwing
him into the passenger seat of the Cessna.
Intriguing beginning, nice stretched out
action scene at the end, a rather likeable performance from The Rock…
What more could action fans want?
Ah, how about a story that entertains right
throughout? Anything other than the sluggish middle on offer here? And
while you’re at it, turf Sean William Scott on his butt -- he’s the
dictionary description of annoying here.
The Rock’s got a fair way to go before he’ll
be laying down his imprint at the front of Mann’s Chinese theatre, but
while his latest film is only so-so, it might be good enough to garner
interest in the man’s future action endeavours.
One for discount Tuesday.
2.5 out of 5
Welcome to the Jungle
Australian release: Thursday January 1st
Cast: The Rock, Sean William Scott, Rosario Dawson,
Christopher Walken, Ewan Bremmer, Ernie Reyes Jr.
Director: Peter Berg.
Website: Click here.
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