The Rock is too big for the big screen
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Due to this, apparently, being Dwayne Johnson season, there were two trailers back to back starring the wrestling megastar in the cinema this week. This week’s Rampage and July’s Skyscraper both position Johnson as the audience’s protagonist. What they both do, though, is write him into a character that doesn’t fit his physicality at all. Now don’t get me wrong, like most young males, I sort of love The Rock unconditionally. So much so, I feel a weird compulsion to capitalise the word ‘the’ when referring to him out of sheer respect. But I do have an issue with some of these casting choices.
You see, the way The Rock is built is in such a way that the only realistic job he could possibly have involves being paid to be as big as he is. When you try to tell the audience that this man works a normal nine-to-five office job it comes off as ludicrous. In Skyscraper he appears to play an ex-forces security expert. It’s a nice try to sidestep this problem but even it doesn’t work. Soldiers are fit, I grant you. But the lifestyle required to look like Johnson requires more than an assault course every day. It’s a science of intense, lengthy exercise, precise rest periods and microscopically detailed diet-plans.
It’s even more laughable in Rampage where he’s supposed to be some sort of animal researcher. How many academics do you know who have time for four hours of dead-lifts every morning? Basically the only occupations that ring true to the appearance of the man are wrestler/action star. At which point you may as well just make it a biopic.
The solution to this, then, is something I think Johnson has already figured out. Where his strength lies (besides in his glutes) is in his fantasy roles. Jumanji worked, as does Fast and Furious. The Rock’s upcoming integration in DC’s movies as Black Adam totally checks out as well. These universes are so removed from reality that his appearance becomes part of the fantastical background. It’s something I call the Schwarzenegger equation. Make him a Terminator or a superhero or make it part of the joke.