Who is Dwayne Johnson? The Rock? Wrestler? Actor? Dwayne seems to change what he’s after more often than Anne Heche. The big guy started out in the ring for the WWE, throwing his elbow around like it was nose candy at Studio 54. He was very charismatic and eventually became a huge wrestling star which could only lead to one thing. No, not steroids but movies. Action films to be exact.
Carla Gugino and Dwayne Johnson at the "Race to Witch Mountain" Los Angeles Premiere. © Glenn Harris / PR Photos
Coming from professional wrestling (that’s an oxymoron like my dumb cousin who locked himself inside a refrigerator to see how the light worked) it was a safe bet that he wasn’t going to be offered the lead in A Beautiful Mind. So Dwayne popped up in The Mummy 2 and then reprised that role for The Scorpion King. You don’t have to be a great actor to sell an action movie. You just have to show off the muscles and apply enough oil to your body that Marlon Brando’s hair in The Godfather would be jealous. You can’t really fault Dwayne for trying his hand at Hollywood; Arnold Schwarzenegger had done the same thing in the eighties and was so successful at it that he thought he could govern a southern state. The only difference between the two was that Arnie was a huge star in very successful films while Dwayne kept appearing in action bombs like Walking Tall and Doom.
Aside from having a physique that made Nell Carter sorry she ever gave up jogging, Dwayne couldn’t pinpoint what makes an action film a hit, so he turned to comedy. He took a supporting role in Be Cool but that film was flawed, and by flawed I mean it really sucked. It was hard for Dwayne to prove he had the comedic chops since most of his scenes were with Vince Vaughn who is one of the funniest guys making movies today and overshadowed Dwayne in every scene they were in together. Audiences were not ready to accept Dwayne as a funny guy yet.
In Hollywood you need to build up an audience in one genre and conquer that territory before you can branch out to try something new. Arnie had become the biggest action star on the planet so it seemed a safe bet for him to try his hand at being funny in Twins (the stunt casting didn’t hurt either).
So far action and comedy weren’t working. What’s next? Go the indie route and prove you can flex the acting chops. Dwayne popped up in Southland Tales, a film that was such a mess it made Andy Dick’s trailer look like a place children might go to play.
Dwayne was running out of options and genres when he signed up for a Disney family film called The Game Plan. This was the type of movie where plot could be substituted for Macaulay Culkin screaming as he clamps his hands across his face like he does in Home Alone. Saying The Game Plan is not my cup of tea is an understatement, I would rather listen to Richard Gere lecture me on Tibet while getting root canal surgery from Michael J. Fox. But the film proved to be a big success so what do I know about root canal?
In Hollywood, if something works once then you do it again until the river runs dry or Owen Wilson and Kate Hudson break up one more time. Dwayne is now appearing in Race to Witch Mountain, another Disney family film that looks as boring as watching My Dinner with Andre with the sound turned off.
Making family films for Disney doesn’t seem like the career Dwayne envisioned when he began this trek, and making those kinds of films will only take you so far. He needs to figure out his long term career goals which sadly he hasn’t done yet since his next film looks like another family film called Tooth Fairy where Dwayne plays a real tooth fairy or Ted Bundy (I can’t really tell from the synopsis). It’s easy to keep doing what he’s doing and make money at it, but there won’t be any longevity in this track.
Ask Jim Varney (which might be hard since he’s dead) about a one track career. The guy made eight Ernest movies, and eventually wore right through his denim vest.
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