Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked
And 5 That Sucked....
5. Mathayus - The Scorpion King
When The Rock starred in The Scorpion King, it was during the days when he was a WWE star first, and an actor second. It was his first leading role (he made a cameo in The Mummy Returns which setup this spin-off) and was as high-profile a blockbuster debut as there had ever been in movies. Unfortunately, the performance The Rock gave couldn't live up to the hype. It didn't help of course that the movie he was starring in was basically a Z-grade actioner that he was expected to carry on his shoulders. No actors of any note surrounded him to take the pressure off of him and without the live adrenaline of the WWE crowd, The Rock's undoubted charisma didn't initially seem to carry-over into movies where several takes were common-place. The Scorpion King is camp and hammy, with Johnson overacting massively, something he's used to doing when wrestling but didn't work here. It may be the film that led to crossover stardom for The Rock, and a salary of $5.5 million is a world record for a staring role, but The Scorpion King fails to engage and Johnson's rawness as a film actor is very apparent as he has yet to develop the screen presence that would make him a star. Johnson does his best to emulate Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian, but his performance and the film in general takes itself far too seriously for it to be considered an enjoyable romp.
When The Rock starred in The Scorpion King, it was during the days when he was a WWE star first, and an actor second. It was his first leading role (he made a cameo in The Mummy Returns which setup this spin-off) and was as high-profile a blockbuster debut as there had ever been in movies. Unfortunately, the performance The Rock gave couldn't live up to the hype. It didn't help of course that the movie he was starring in was basically a Z-grade actioner that he was expected to carry on his shoulders. No actors of any note surrounded him to take the pressure off of him and without the live adrenaline of the WWE crowd, The Rock's undoubted charisma didn't initially seem to carry-over into movies where several takes were common-place. The Scorpion King is camp and hammy, with Johnson overacting massively, something he's used to doing when wrestling but didn't work here. It may be the film that led to crossover stardom for The Rock, and a salary of $5.5 million is a world record for a staring role, but The Scorpion King fails to engage and Johnson's rawness as a film actor is very apparent as he has yet to develop the screen presence that would make him a star. Johnson does his best to emulate Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian, but his performance and the film in general takes itself far too seriously for it to be considered an enjoyable romp.