a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Workmanlike action movie from WWE Films serves as an unoriginal and routine action vehicle for wrestler John Cena. Diamond thief Robert Patrick and his crew kidnap Cena's wife, which leads to the recently discharged marine chasing after Patrick and company through the backwoods of South Carolina. The action is competently produced and Cena is a decent enough of actor in a retro 80s musclebound action hero sort of way (i.e Stallone, Arnold, JCVD, etc.), which is a low bar, but as with those action heroes, he does have undeniable charisma, which he surely honed in the squared circle of the WWE. Overall, "The Marine" is nothing to go out of your way to see, but if you're in the mood for something that seems like a more bombastic version of "Walking Tall" it's not all that bad.

I used to really like this movie. However, the years have gone by and my tastes have matured, and I must say, this defines the word "overblown." It's not half-bad as a popcorn flick as long as you turn your brain COMPLETELY off.I really like John Cena the wrestler, but as an actor (at least in this movie), he isn't anything too special. He's rather wooden and his character is unengaging.The villains kind of suck. Robert Patrick 15 years earlier played one of the greatest movie villains ever in the T-1000, but here his villain is pretty generic. His henchmen and woman are very one-dimensional.The action scenes can be fun to watch if you are able to get past the fact that they are completely implausible and are borrowed from many other movies. Cena's character is just mostly a Superman figure, which usually isn't a good thing.The story is simplistic and the script has some genuinely cringe-worthy one-liners (I did like that Terminator reference, though!).As a movie, it isn't offensively bad or unwatchable by any means, but still pretty bad. Look at it as nothing more than escapism. If you really want to see this, don't do any deep thinking while watching it.RATING: C-

At first I thought it might be a live-action movie, then I realized it was all a very realistically done cartoon.It's just plan terrible. It includes nothing you haven't seen a dozen or more times before. John Cena is a tall muscle man, all splanchnocranium and bulging biceps. He's taut but not graceful. It reminds me of an observation an anthropologist, Alice Brues, made of the gorilla: "He can kill anything he can catch but he can't catch anything." He and the other characters do a fairly decent job of acting, considering that they are nothing more than computer-generated images and their speech is digitally fabricated.The direction is worse. It belong back in the 1960s when seeing action filmed in slow motion was a novelty instead of a hoary cliché. Among the things you've seen before is the pursuit at high speed, several exploding fireballs, a room peppered with bullets, one bad guy shooting another because there may be the hint of betrayal, the good guy tied up and beaten, and -- well, everything. There is wit in some of the lines. It's as if the writers were dying to break out of this action flick straightjacket and write the comedy that the movie really is.The award for best performance and best lines goes to -- envelope, please -- Robert Patrick as the smooth, butyraceous leader of the greasy pack. He's always carefully dressed and polite. Oh, he knows his way around.The plot: the gang kidnaps Cena's wife. He pursues them and gets her back. That's more than the plot deserves.

I think I've finally seen a movie worse than SyFy's. As another reviewer put it, it is nothing more than John Cena running, hitting and wreaking havoc on an area that bears NO resemblance on the Low Country.He's called outside by the colonel where he's handed his discharge papers in a standard business envelope. He's wearing US Army camouflage and cover in an era when the Marines have long adopted the digital utilities. The Marines have NEVER worn the patrol cap he's wearing.A military discharge package is much, MUCH larger and takes a lot longer than handing an individual their papers.WWE should stay out of the movie business. For that matter, they should stay out of entertainment.