The Rock

Skyscraper

Movie Review | Matt Looker | 12th July 2018

Almost all films starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson (or ‘Dwock’, as I will now call him, for ease) play on the fact that he is an impossibly-shaped human with overinflated balloon arms that are at constant risk of bursting and jettisoning his screeching cannonball head around the room. Not to mention that he acts like a small child that has somehow Freaky-Fridayed with his favourite He-Man figure and doesn’t know how long he has left to make the most of it. As such, Dwock always plays larger-than-life characters in larger-than-life films. Skyscraper, however, sees a return to relatively more serious action. It’s still an overblown, ludicrous mess, but it’s genuinely refreshing to see a film like this played with such sincerity. Such ridiculous, idiotic sincerity.

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Fast & Furious 8

Movie Review | Ali Gray | 11th April 2017

The Fast & Furious franchise is not big on learning. It doesn't really care for consequences. It is of the moment. Always in the now. If it were a person, it would be the kind of person who sincerely believes in the motto 'If you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best'. Fast & Furious movies are wrongheaded and backwards but they don't care, because people vote with their wallets. They are Brexit. They are dumb. They make dumb look dumb. They are awful. They are brilliant. They are confusing and simple and ridiculous and serious all at the same time, somehow. Fast & Furious 8, a title and a number which give me great pleasure to say together, is all of these things and more.

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San Andreas

Movie Review | Ali Gray | 27th May 2015

The modern disaster movie is at an impasse, and no amount of hurling Dwayne Johnson at it will succeed. There isn't a disaster you can think of - whether it's from the pit of the Earth or the darkest realms of outer space - that can't be rendered by a room-full of under-fed, under-paid GFX nerds in California. The only limit, therefore, is imagination, and sadly, San Andreas is a movie that's barely capable of coherent or rational thought. Director Brad Peyton borrows a series of second-hand set-pieces from the Roland Emmerich playbook; with buildings collapsing left, right and centre, San Andreas doesn't so much evoke powerful 9/11 imagery as it recalls entire sequences from other, better movies.

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Fast & Furious 7

Movie Review | Ali Gray | 23rd March 2015

For the first time since its inception in 2001, the Fast & Furious franchise was forced to hit the brakes. The unfortunate – but avoidable – death of Paul Walker in an automobile accident in November 2013 meant production on Part 7 skidded to a halt. Now, one year on from its planned release, Furious 7 rides into town after a respectful re-pimping – the muted colours on the poster suggests a star-studded funeral procession, but in actual fact, the latest instalment of The Franchise That Couldn't Slow Down is business as usual: cars, explosions, pecs (men), gussets (women), crap jokes and the most flagrant disrespect for physics since Sir Isaac Newton's naysayers suggested he stick his apple up his arse. You wouldn't call it a fitting tribute to Walker – I'm pretty sure the last thing his family needs to see is 250 cars exploding into fireballs – but you suspect it's what he, the fans and the studio would have wanted. So here we are. Amber turned to green. Let's go.

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Hercules desperate to eat donut placed on left shoulder

Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 25th March 2014

So I think I found the film I'm going to mercilessly rip the piss out of.

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First official still of The Rock in Hercules ruined by picture caption

Movie News | Ali Gray | 24th March 2014

LOL j/k mr Rock sir.

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Snitch

Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 17th June 2013

I've watched a few WWE 'shoot' documentaries recently. They feature men whom I spent hours of my childhood watching get greased up and pretend to ram their elbows into one another's kidneys, now older and with faces like meat, talking candidly about the roles they were playing. It's striking how different they all are from their in-ring characters: remarkably good actors, in a way. The move from ring to action movies is a natural one, and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson has always been the one most qualified to make it. But on the evidence of Snitch, he's forgotten one key piece of The Rock's credo: know your damn role.

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Can you crack the secret hidden code in the new Pain & Gain poster?

Movie News | Luke | 4th April 2013

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Trailer breakdown: Fast & Furious 6 is Mission: In-Freakin'-Sanity

Movie Trailer | Ali | 6th February 2013

Liked the Super Bowl trailer for Fast & Furious 6? Take a frame-by-frame look at the highlights of the movie that Michael Haneke only wishes he was directing. DIESEL POWER!

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Nine reasons G.I. Joe: Retaliation was delayed for nine months

Movie Feature | Ali | 24th May 2012

Paramount have pushed back G.I. Joe: Retaliation to March 2013 just five weeks before its US release, allegedly so they can post-convert it to 3D. Join me in stroking my itchy chin, after the jump.

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