Everyone is Wrong about The Rock, including The Rock.

The Rock has spent the last decade forming himself into something, something everyone can understand. Something accessible to all. A prepackaged enlarged mass of “hard work” and the “right” moral attitude which in America means racial vagueness. A strongman with the personality of a Bogart x an ancestor of Cary Grant if Cary Grant intermarried about 19 or 20 times and it came in a can. A dependable, trustworthy, avatar of America, something akin to John Wayne, who has become the latest and frankly saddest iteration of a Box office king. His being a Box office superstar is indisputable, what is disputable is how good this run has been. What is the quality of the Rock's dominance over the box office? Because while the numbers speak for themselves if one starts comparing him to those who have had more or similar success at the Box office the differences in the kinds of movies they made and ultimately what motivated them to do these movies becomes apparent and subsequently we find a multitude of variables playing out in things in Johnson's control and alot more outside of it.

I would start with the movie that would jump start the Rock’s current run as an international superstar and change the shape and direction of his career; “The Fast and the Furious”. I find it interesting that the Rock movie with the most cultural cache and significance to date is the one movie he wasn't really the star of when he joined it and thus had to leave it because the other guy knew his value and wasn't budging. Vin Diesel and co. had by that time had begun the successful transition of this garage band movie into a box office juggernaut that acted more like a Bond film. One that just won't quit no matter how much some of us may want them to. Very few of the F&F films if any are well made films, but they're a boat load of fun, and they know what they are. They found an audience and then rode it. If it sounds similar it's probably not by accident and it may be (at least subconsciously) what attracted The Rock to the franchise, but that also tells you a lot about the Rock's philosophical leanings as it pertains to art and business. Everything post F&F for the Rock captures almost none of what makes Fast and the Furious magical; that it walks that line between B-movie and A-actioneer so well the only thing suggesting it isn’t is the budget, and that every installment is very committed and very earnest work, whereas that can be said of the Rock, but not his films after F&F. Most of which aren't very fun, are rather cynical, and worse still predictable because they’re cynical. They’re drained of any of the sense of compass the fast and furious have because they lack personality. The movies are ad vehicles for selling the dead to us. Retro video games, a well remembered Robin Williams starrer, the nostalgia of old Disney, The Rock as a stand in for Arnold Schwarzenegger, all of which are gone and are definitely in no way present in the novelty cups as movies that he keeps pushing out on an assembly line. That is what a brand is supposed to be it seems; predictable by way of reliability and most importantly aversion from risk, but it's the exact wrong lesson to take from the F&F franchise. As dumb as the Fast and Furious movies are they are anything but predictable, unless you mean the only predictable thing about them; that each installment will be wilder than the next. They took a risk changing the entire mood, tone, feel of the first few installments, into something so massive in scope and still small in feel. The Rock’s efforts outside that franchise are tame, tepid, sexless, and boring, they don't even have the good sense to be schlock. The promise with each installment is that one will be more forgettable than the other.

Johnson's other acting cohorts with Box office Crown's and Kingdoms like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Stallone, or even Tom Cruise were all known to take risk in their career choices and/or their type. In Cruise’s case it was “Born on the 4th of July”, “Interview with a Vampire”, or “Eyes Wide Shut” all of which strayed from the image Tom Cruise had worked hard to create about what kind of actor he was. This latest Rock; bigger, stronger, more physically imposing in almost every sense of the word will take no such risk, be they physical or in the context of his filmography. In fact when looking at the Rock's Box office compatriots, There's only one that looks a lot like him and that is Will Smith and that is because both of them have been extremely risk averse in their choices and hyper concerned with the quality and sanctity of their image and that is what holds them back as actors. Being that acting is about creating which to some extent involves destruction and deconstruction of perception and celebrity is about curating and to some extent involves constant maintaining of perception.

The Rock has through design earned just about all of the criticism he’s gotten over the past few months, as his popularity has seemed to hit it's first major snag leaving him open to critiques that have always been just beneath the surface, if not on it. I have outlined thus far exactly why, but my issue with a lot of the criticism as it has concerned the Rock lately is that collectively they seem to suggest an inherent lacking in Dwayne Johnson. Not his choices, or the quality of projects afforded him early on, and furthermore they ignore the obstacles and variables that played into the choices. It must first be understood that what Dave Bautista gets to do is because of what The Rock did. If Dwayne Johnson doesn't exist, if he doesn't become a formidable actor, no one takes wrestler-turned actors serious enough to even think about casting a Dave Bautista in the roles he's gotten. Before Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, wrestlers were mostly side shows in movies that were metaphorically a carnival barker screaming at us to observe these hulking oddities in their “habitat”. Even in the delightful “Princess Bride” Andre the Giant is well a Giant, and fundamentally the draw there is in the currency of an oddity with the only difference being he lives in an odd world. It's far kinder, but nonetheless based in not as much a character as a fit. No one ever took wrestlers seriously enough to believe in them as actors unless they were a counter culture maverick like John Carpenter. It would take someone to know the difference between how a John Carpenter movie was regarded then as compared to now to know how “They Live” wasn't exactly a game changer, and unfortunately we never really saw Roddy Piper do much after. The movie quality, or quality of characters of a Bautista or Cena may be far better on their part but any cursory look at the issue concedes that was part of the difficulty for the Rock. He had to be the forebearer for all of these guys. No one near the sphere of artistic influence of a Denis Villanueve, a Sam Mendes or a James Gunn even, were running up to give wrestlers pictures then, they started doing that after Dwayne proved time and time again in role after role that he was a talented actor in all kinds of roles, and thus that there may be some gold buried in the hills of these giants.

The fair question to ask right alongside how the Rock ultimately become so bland a action star, is why no one believes in his talent? Maybe because so often how good you are is confused with the overall quality of your projects. The Rock had to start off with journeyman directors like Chuck Russell, Kevin Bray, Andrzej Bartkowiak, and Phil Joanou. The scripts were usually solid, usually written by just above journeyman writers like Jeff Maguire, or William Osborne, but they also betrayed a lack of understanding of where action was headed and what they had in the Rock rather than the past heroes they seemed tailor-made for. This was the level of risk Hollywood was willing to take with wrestlers up until this point because they were not proven commodities as bankable leads or actors. The two highest profile collaborations of the Rock's career up to the Fast and Furious were films by respectively; Peter Berg (The Rundown) and F. Gary Gray, (Be Cool ) neither set the world on fire. Yet and still Hollywood saw it on display clear as day, and these were no worse projects than “The Scorpion King 3”, “The Man with the Iron Fist” or Riddick”- the movies Dave Bautista started in before he got “Guardians of the Galaxy”. Still, there were to be no offers out there courting the Rock to higher quality directors, writers, or projects. Some insight may be gleamed from an action star peer of his Jason Statham. While doing press for “The Bank Job” one of the movies considered at the top of Stathams filmography, he himself expressed some frustration with Hollywood's unwillingness to see him in any other light than the last thing that made money and the impoverished nature of the scripts and yes the unproven directors he kept getting. The truth is being an “action star" has always been mired in a subtle bias that automatically insists your work is less than and gives little credit to the work behind them. It's warranted to some degree given the tendency for these films to lean on archetypes, but the aughts era that folks like The Rock and Jason Statham were born into were particularly lean times for the genre, because no one of unusual talent seemingly wanted to direct them anymore. Nonetheless despite being inhibited by a lack of creative influence or anybody to test or challenge his acting prowess, never mind not having the budgets of some of the films that have been of late given to Dave Bautista or John Cena, he still found a way to carve out a number of really good performances that betrayed a range he's still not being given. For all it's shoddy goofiness the Scorpion King is not the same kind of hero characteristically as “Walking Tall”. He's having much more fun, and he's much more in the vein of Arnold Schwarzenegger's one liner melee in “Total Recall” than let's say Sylvester Stallone's somber hard body in First Blood. “Elliott Wilhelm” the kind hearted, but misguided Bodyguard in “Be Cool” is truly a piece of art. A joyous bright eyed departure from anything we'd ever seen the Rock do before and still the farthest any of the wrestler turned actors crew have gone from who they’re seen or perceived as. A probably gay bodyguard with a naive but warm dream to be an actor and a country singer. Dwayne never talks down to the role. He plays Elliot with a wide eyed sincerity that showed a security in his own version of manhood not only in the character but in the Rock as a person, before he retreated right back to the safer version. His performance of the “Bring it On” scene would be cringe if it weren't for the fact that he approaches it with such child-like glee. There are some brilliant choices made as well. Everything he does once Chili tells him he's being rude is such deft understanding of character it feels lived in and true despite how cartoonish a person Elliott is. The mulling over in his head, the look over to Uma Thurman, the little dance he does before he gives in. It's total commitment not to the gag but to why its funny. Which is not because he's effeminate, which would be low and homophobic, but because he's dedicated to his dream in a way very few of us can be. He's so unafraid to be him and that kind of daring can make us laugh too if for no other reason than it makes us uncomfortable to be in the presence of someone so almost embarrassingly affirmed in who they are. It's sort of the same feeling that comes from watching someone like a William Hung. There's something sweet and a bit inspiring about someone so endearingly connected to something impossible. Pushing right through the boundaries of not only what's expected, but what they can do to the point that what is clearly bad somehow becomes an overall good. The Rock's performance built it's foundation on this.

The Rock's ability to make a cunning deconstruction of what we think of him is his art, and when storytellers have engaged with him in this play it has worked out to some truly fascinating feats of acting. There's a flashback scene in Michael Bay's “Pain and Gain” where he gets caught robbing someones house high off coke and extremely emotional, his freeze frame reaction when the men arrive upon him is absolute gold! Everything he does as Paul Doyle in Bay's kinetic tale of crash dummies as bank robbers is tied not only to an astute understanding of the needs of the script but a concurrent takedown of audience expectations for him and those like him. He plays Doyle as a complex network of reactions to any given environment triggered by his ideas of manhood, and his constant confusion about what that makes him, which makes him malleable, and alternatively he uses many of the same expressions he's known for in a context foreign to us until this role. The eyebrows no longer stand for assuredness and misplaced confidence, they are indicative of rabid confusion, and ignorance. Paul spends most of the movie pretending (badly) that reacting to whatever is going on is the same as knowing what's going on. Same goes for his work in Richard Kelly's Southland Tales, save it's softer less ferocious. It's a Richard Kelly film so nothing is really going to go the way you would expect and Johnson rides those storytelling waves as if he's an all pro surfer. With roles like these under his belt, with what he did in roles like “Snitch” and “Faster”, If you don't think The Rock could play what Bautista did in Blade Runner (which frankly is vastly overstated) you're kidding yourself about what was needed for that role and what the Rock can do.

It may in part be due to the fact that we so heavily dismiss the role editors and directors play in an actor's performance that we don't understand what a world of difference it makes to have world-class talent working with you behind the camera. Co-authors that really push you to get a certain kind of performance out, rather than let you get away with the first of second cut. What it means when you have a director who knows how to give you that right motivation to get somewhere to find your character. Who helps you in any number of ways see what they have in vision and collaborate with you to help create and mold that by activating even your own imagination, sometimes in places that you didn't think you had the ability to imagine. What the power of a really great editor who's really trying to make something that reaches well beyond your own significant abilities and brings it to that place outside the context of your talents, your limitations, so that it may live on and find life in the collective imaginations of a mass of people means. The importance of a Sally Menke to not only Quentin Tarantino, but the massive consistency he gets out of his actors, or a Thelma Schoonmaker to the legendary performances we've gotten from Scorcese's films. Denis Villeneuve, and Ridley Scott, Rian Johnson, and James Gunn are mostly well thought of and two of them are considered among the best at what they do and that's because they work with the best as well, that's what Bautista benefits from and he benefits from that because the Rock proved it possible from a far less privileged position. He was then a bi-racial African -Somoan man not the ambiguous brand he's turned himself into, but those DECISIONS were made at least somewhat implicitly by force. Hollywood and audiences rejected this actor version of The Rock (who was always hyper concerned with his audience ) responded by regressing that part of his career that crafted and played with his image in a myriad of ways from his race to his attitude, to a more acceptable, far more simple-minded caricature of all possibilities you see now. Those same audience members look a little bit silly going so hard at what they didn't stand for then or even now as they tout performances by Bautista and Cena that actually are not as good as, and definitely not better than what The Rock did then, but appear so because of what they have around them.

Under that lens and in that context I think the Rock deserves a lot more respect and a little more empathy for what has happened to his career because while I do not think it was the correct decision, it is clearly an understandable one. I wish The Rock would have stayed in the trenches a little longer and waited for it to pop because eventually it was going to pop. It was inevitable because his talents were that large. They’ were on display in films like “Snitch” and “Gridiron gang”, and they're on display in his films that were greater risk like “Be Cool”. They're on display in even his more hapless movies like “Skyscraper” and recently in “Black Adam” where many have let their bias miss what he actually brought and brings. A quote from Matthew Zolller-Seitz recent review of The Rock's performance in “Black Adam” brilliantly makes an observation that connects the Rock to a lineage of former silver screen hard men like Humphrey Bogart, Anthony Quinn in “La Strada” and of course Schwarzenegger and Stallone. Seitz is absolutely right, the Rock has always been more aware of his place in the line of cinematic leads, especially as it pertains to the hard men of action. He has creatively tried to mold his own place in that rigid valley where he could make his own mark, and to some extent he has, but he has also given in to the cynicality of one of the most unforgiving eras in Hollywood. A craven world of content and algorithms, and one that stifles opportunities for many, and inexplicably gives others multiple chances. I have no idea why out of all of these athletes turned actors whether wrestler Jon Cena or MMA star Rampage Jackson, straight-to-DVD actioneer Scott Adkins, or Ronda Rousey, it's Bautista who gets choice roles, but I promise it's not merely because he “wanted to be an actor”. A bevy of opportunities and meetings outside the studio probably came together to allow Bautista to be in rooms where people could recommend him to others based on want they saw. Friends of friends of friends and all that, but Hollywood is not a meritocracy and in no way is your desire in direct corrollation to your career. It's rather disingenuous to pretend anything other than randominty, luck, and yes race play into the differences especially when it's clear that when the Rock leaned more into his race he struggled and as soon as he left it behind he was able to become a box office star at the least. What the Rock has become is a combination of variables as well, some named here some we may never know, but what he is as an actor is better than most have given, egregiously underrated and misunderstood, and a by product of one of the weakest eras in movies in general. What he can be? Maybe that's the question Hollywood and The “Rock” Dwayne Johnson should be asking from here on in, because up until this point almost everyone including the Rock has been wrong about the Rock.