Now updated withJumanji: The NextLevel!
Over the last 20+ years,Dwayne “The Rock” Johnsonhas become one of the most recognizable names, faces, and physiques in the world. The rare individual to make the jump from pro wrestler to top-tier Hollywood talent, Johnson has been building his filmography for both television and the big screen since the late 1990s. As an actor, he now tallies 100 credits; he’s padding that list of credits out with and endless stream of new ideas as a producer, further shaping his brand and delivering original ideas tailored to what Johnson himself and his legions of fans want to see. All that being said, his career in Hollywood is just getting started and we expect many more decades ahead for The Rock both in front of the camera and behind it. With that in mind, we wanted to get caught up on all of Johnson’s major movies so far in order to take a look at his progress as an actor along the way, discover some hidden gems, and recommend some performances you may have missed.
It’s not all going to be pretty, of course. There were a lot of rough patches along the way that Johnson had to weather well before the success of things likeThe Fast and the Furiousfranchise and the formation of his own banner,Seven Bucks Productions. But in each of these performances you can see the innate talent possessed by Johnson and how each role shaped and molded what his persona would become in the years that followed. We wanted to revisit where Johnson has been in order to get a better handle on just where his career is going.
Now, you can skip on down to the rankings if you’d like, but to find out why this list is more than just a Buzzfeed style list, I’d like to tell you a little story: Johnson is a sort of hometown hero of mine. Granted, he only lived in the Lehigh Valley for a brief period of time (and he totally went to the wrong school; Go Rovers!), but his insane success left a strong impression on the community, helped by the fact that he would occasionally return home toattend a Freedom football gameearly in his career. (Johnson probably doesn’t remember the time spent there so fondly if hisBallerscharacter Spencer Strasmore isany indication.) Oddly enough, our families even crossed paths; my dad was a power-lifter at the time, Johnson’s dad is the storied pro wrestler Rocky Johnson, and somehow the two of them came to occupy the same circle for a brief while. (I’ve still got an autographed picture from the elder Johnson that reads “To David, Best in Sports” for what it’s worth.)
A few years later, my brother–a Freedom alumnus–and I marveled at the growing fandom for Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson after some hard luck in college football and some hard-fought years in the squared circle of professional wrestling. Here was a guy who, for his time, lived in our neck of the woods, only to escape and claw his way to the top, first as the People’s Champion, and eventually as Forbes' top-grossing Hollywood actor. There’s something inspirational in that, whoever you are, but for those of us who have some infinitesimally small claim to fame from having been within The Rock’s vicinity, his success story really hits home. So it’s with that backstory in mind that I visited–and in most cases revisited–all of The Rock’s major movies, including some minor parts along the way.
Here’s a look at The Rock’s movies, ranked worst to first:
Longshot (2001)
Hey, we all have to start somewhere. After all of that glowing praise I shared above, it’s tough to take The Rock down a peg or two, but this movie deserves to be wiped off the face of the Earth. The production company tried to do so, it seems, and Johnson probably wishes they succeeded, but “Because Internet” we have his first legit big-screen role.Spoiler alert:It’s a very bad thing.
Longshotis a real enigma of a movie–How did this get made? How did they land all those musically talented cameos?–until you realize that it was slapped together as a promotional piece displaying the acting abilities of boyband members and others signed to the lateLou Pearlman’s Trans Continental Records. (It did earn a release in Germany, however, due to the musicians' popularity there.) That explains a lot, but the fact that Pearlman later plead guilty to a host of charges tied to accusations of running a massive Ponzi scheme explains even more. TheMakingofLongshot, however? That’s a movie I’d like to see.
In the meantime, you too can enjoy this brief appearance by The Rock as a very handsome mugger who inconceivably gets beaten up by a guy half his size:
Southland Tales (2006)
I honestly had to wrestle with whether to give the bottom spot to The Rock’s 30-second performance as “Mugger” or his time spent as a very confused man/men in a very confusing movie.Southland Talesalmost nabbed the dubious distinction of being The Rock’s worst movie, but it managed to take the next best spot by virtue of the fact thatLongshotis barely a movie at all and this follow-up fromRichard KellyofDonnie Darkofame is slightly more so.
Kelly’sDonnie Darkois a well-deserved cult classic;Southland Talesis what happens when a studio doesn’t understand a previous film’s appeal and opts to give the filmmaker carte blanche in a misguided attempt to tap into their artistic genius. The problem here is that no one, presumably, ever told Kelly that this rambling, two-and-a-half hour mess of a plot was both incomprehensible and nonsensical in its pretentiousness. It’s basically a movie version of a Philosophy 101 class, a sci-fi Wikipedia entry, and a post-9/11 paranoia/conspiracy theory all mashed together. So while it was a joy to see Johnson andSeann William Scottappear in the same film again–seeThe Rundownlater on in this list–the casting was way, way off for this movie. And that’s just the least of it.
Johnson’s character is the amnesia-stricken and improbably named Boxer Santeros, an action-movie star with a movie screenplay that prophesies the End of the World. Oh and he crosses paths with psychic porn star Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and, yeah, that’s about all you need to know. Avoid this mess at all costs.
The Mummy Returns (2001)
After 5 years as a pro wrestler, taking on such names as Flex Kavana, Rocky Maivia, and eventually The Rock, Johnson got his first big-screen break inThe Mummy Returns. Sure, Johnson had already landed bit parts in TV series likeStar Trek: Voyager,That ‘70s Show, andThe Net, but the flashback role of the Scorpion King led to a fully fledgedMummyprequel in its own right, with The Rock getting the title role. Johnson had to suffer some literal slings and arrows in his big-screen debut, however. His performance as Mathayus attempting to survive a desert trek in the opening scene was serviceable:
But it’s the morphing of The Rock into a computer-generated scorpion monstrosity that still gives us nightmares. This infamous scene sums up just about everything wrong with this picture:
Tooth Fairy (2010)
Hoo boy, where to start with this one. In case you’ve never heard the ill-advised plot synopsis forTooth Fairy, it centers on Johnson’s Derek Thompson, a minor league hockey player whose rough personality and jerkish behavior lands him in trouble with the very real tooth fairies, who sentence him to become a tooth fairy himself and learn the error of his ways. What?
Yeah, I would love to know what went into Johnson & Co.’s decision to accept the offer to play this part. UnlikeThe Game Plan, Johnson’s character is cartoonishly villainous from the outset: He tells a young fan to aim low so that he’s not disappointed when his dreams don’t come true, then he steals a dollar from his girlfriend’s six-year-old daughter for a poker bet and, when he’s caught, tells her that the tooth fairy isn’t real. So while Derek might deserve his fate as a Tooth Fairy-in-Training, Johnson (and viewers) deserve better than this silly, overly saccharine story. Luckily, Johnson’s movie career takes a turn for the better after this movie and into the 2010s.
Empire State (2013)
2013 was a pretty good year for The Rock, but this straight-to-DVD movie was not a big part of it. Look, we get it, it’s tough for any heist movie to stand up to the likes ofHeatandOcean’s Eleven, butEmpire Stateis just an across-the-board failure.Liam HemsworthandMichael Angaranosimply don’t have the charisma or the care to elevateAdam Mazer’s dull and slow-paced script about two best friends who rob $11 million from an armored car company.
This “Based on a True Story” movie inspired a lot of interest at the time, but the adaptation just kept sliding further and further down the quality ladder during its entire production process. Johnson adds some excitement as the opposing force in NYPD Detective James Ransone, but his screen time is too little to lift the overall movie. Maybe if Mazer and directorDito Montielhad focused the story on his character instead, thenEmpire Statewould have had a theatrical release at the very least.
Race to Witch Mountain (2009)
While this is a nice meet-cute for Johnson and futureSan Andreasco-starCarla Gugino, there’s not much else going for this movie. It’s fine for a “Disney TV movie in the afternoon” kind of feature and, being the third time Disney adaptedAlexander Key’s novel, “Escape from Witch Mountain,” it had a decent performance at the box office. As for Johnson though, this movie is another example of how even The Rock isn’t a perfect match for every conceivable movie role out there.
Race to Witch Mountainsees Johnson as Jack Bruno, down-on-his-luck former mob getaway driver turned Las Vegas cabbie, as you do. His fortunes change when a pair of teenagers appear in the back of his cab with a boatload of money and a vague destination in mind. But the kids aren’t who they seem and Jack soon finds himself caught between the mob (and the money he owes them), the federal government, and an alien hitman. It’s got elements ofE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and similar kid-centric alien movies out there, but it never feels quite as big as those classic productions.Race to Witch Mountainalso puts Johnson in the back seat of the plot, even when he’s in the literal driver’s seat throughout the film, and resigns him to “babysitter who occasionally gets to punch stuff.” That’s fine since this tale is about the journey of Sara (AnnaSophia Robb) and Seth (Alexander Ludwig), but as far as The Rock Movies go, it’s not one of his best.
Doom (2005)
Even The Rock couldn’t salvage this much maligned, and rightfully so, attempt at a video game adaptation. Though Johnson leads a team of space marines as Gunnery Sergeant Asher “Sarge” Mahonin, and though he gets a rare chance to go all-out villainous, this tale relegates him to support status behind the core emotional leads ofKarl UrbanandRosamund Pike, who play the Grimm siblings. With the exception of a pretty cool scene in which Urban’s Grimm goes on a first-person perspective, God-mode rampage to take out the remaining mutated members of the Martian facility–including Sarge–this one’s better off left alone.
Planet 51 (2009)
Johnson has exactly two animated features under his belt:Planet 51andMoana. One of these highlights the actor’s signature strengths, surprising talents, and his ancestral background, while the other is a somewhat forgettable space comedy. On the plus side, Johnson gets to play pretty much the only human character in the entirety of this movie, even if he doesn’t get to arrive in earnest until about 20 minutes through the picture. That’s because this “alien invasion” movie from Ilion Animation Studios and HandMade Films, through Sony’s domestic distribution, actually flips the script and makes the green-skinned aliens and their planet the home base. It’s a clever change reminiscent of the 1961 episode ofThe Twiight Zone"The Invaders", but that twist is really the only thing going for this otherwise bland movie.
Johnson’s NASA astronaut Chuck Baker should be a fish out of water in this movie, but the fact that the alien town of Glipforg rather resembles 1950s America and that Chuck is quite self-confident flip that as well. Chuck ends up befriending a local alien kid and they manage to teach each other a few things about their surprisingly vast shared universe along the way, at least until the usual miscommunications between civilizations arise. Unfortunately,Planet 51is too busy referencing 1950s Americana and parroting familiar storylines to do anything more interesting with the idea, and any nuances of Johnson’s performance are lost within it.
Be Cool (2005)
While the cast assembled forF. Gary Gray’s ensemble flick is pretty insane, it’s hard to call this one a Rock movie. It takes 10 minutes for Johnson to show up at all, and when he does, it’s as a gay bodyguard whose only “thing” is to raise a single eyebrow. The fact that he works forVince Vaughn’s awful character and gets taken down early on byJohn Travolta’s over-the-top protagonist is almost too much to bear if you’re a fan of Johnson.
Gray’s Hollywood Wiseguys flick is intentionally self-referential, but it comes across as a bit mean-spirited when comparing The Rock’s character to a wannabe actor who has the looks but lacks the talent. I will say that he makes the most out of his small part though and really seems to be enjoying himself starting halfway through the film, which is more than I can say for myself. If this was a ranking of The Rock’s performances, it would rank higher, but this movie is a real drag.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013)
Despite being one of the best parts ofG.I. Joe: Retaliation, Johnson’s arrival as Roadblock could not quite ignite Hasbro/Paramount Pictures/MGM’sG.I. Joefeature franchise in this soft reboot. And it wasn’t for lack of trying. The film cost around $130 to 155 million, but the follow-up toG.I. Joe: Rise of Cobramanaged to bring in over $375 million worldwide, which would be enough of a success for most film franchises to soldier on. Unfortunately, Hasbro opted to shelve any more movies until a new deal was in place that gave them more creative control; we’ll see how that reboot pans out in 2020.
As forG.I. Joe: Retaliation, it’s almost as if Johnson was born to be a Joe. As Roadblock, one of the surviving members of the title team after Cobra’s surprisingly successful efforts, he leads the others in a counter-terrorist effort to expose Cobra’s treachery and to restore their own honor. The problem is that there are too many Joes in the barracks here and far too many sub-plots and characters to keep track of; additionally, the plot is so cluttered with action beats that there’s no room for any of it to breathe and so little thought put into those moments that almost none of it makes much sense. It’s a popcorn fest for sure and Johnson gets the literal last shot of the film, but we’ve seen that he can do much better, even in franchise fare.
