Can You Match The Rock To His Movie Role?
- by Ben Sherlock
- – on
- in Movies and TV
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has come a long way since his WWE days. He’s made that rare transition from sports star to viable movie star. In fact, he may be the only athlete in the history of commercial sports and move-making to make such a transition and go from the top of one game to the top of another game. The Rock was a huge name in wrestling, and over the course of just a few years, he’s become Dwayne Johnson, arguably the biggest movie star on the planet. He’s certainly the busiest, with around 100 acting credits to his name since he first became a thespian around the turn of the millennium. He’s already starred in two movies this year, with a third coming out over the Christmas season. Next year and beyond, he has a grand total of 21 projects in production or in development. And on top of all of that, he stars in a smash hit comedy on HBO called Ballers, which is now in its third highly-rated season. He makes for a pretty good actor, because he’s confident, he takes things seriously, and he’s immensely likable. However, his range isn’t very impressive, and you’ll often find him playing very different roles exactly the same way. They also have generic action hero names. So, can you distinguish these Dwayne Johnson roles from one another?
Fast Five
This might just be a coincidence, but when Dwayne Johnson joined The Fast and the Furious franchise, a lacklustre car action franchise got knocked into nitro boost. It went really high-octane, really gritty, really real, and the already successful movies became some of the biggest movies in the world. The gang went to Rio, where Johnson was the bad guy, except now he’s the good guy and he’s been in them ever since, going in and out of prison and in and out of the parameters of the law. They’re a confusing and convoluted bunch of movies. What’s his character’s name?
San Andreas
In 2015, The Rock starred in Brad Peyton’s San Andreas. It was a revival of sorts of the popular big budget disaster movie genre of the 1970s, showing what happens when the biggest earthquake of all time sweeps across the West Coast. The Rock plays a heroic helicopter rescue guy who gets caught up in the search for his estranged wife and daughter amid the chaos of the disaster. The character was not particularly developed or three-dimensional. But what was his name?
Baywatch
Way back when, David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson starred in a cheesy TV show called Baywatch about lifeguards who think they’re cops. This year, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson teamed up with Zac Efron to make a movie version of the show. It was the perfect opportunity to do a self-aware mockery of the campiness and the ridiculousness of it, a la 21 Jump Street, but director Seth Gordon tragically squandered that opportunity and instead went for a Michael Bay-style action movie and failed miserably. Anyway, who does The Rock play?
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
Later this year, The Rock will appear alongside the fellow A-list likes of Kevin Hart and Jack Black in a reimagining or a reboot or something of Jumanji, which starred Robin Williams as Alan Parrish and was about a jungle-themed board game that got all too real. In the new remake or revamp or whatever, the board game has been switched to a video game. So, which character does The Rock play in the new movie, to be released this December?
Pain & Gain
No pain, no gain, right? That’s the saying that Michael Bay played on with the title of one of his cheapest movies ever, a dark comedy based on the true story of the kidnapping, extortion, torture, and murder of a handful of victims by a bunch of bodybuilders from the Sun Gym. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson starred alongside Mark Wahlberg and Anthony Mackie. While the movie did receive some positive reviews, it also received its fair share of negative ones: one called it “dumb, shallow, deeply cynical, and creatively bereft.” Who does The Rock play?
Empire State
Right before he became the biggest movie star on the planet, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson starred in this low-rent, third-rate crime thriller alongside Liam Hemsworth and Emma Roberts. The movie was so bad that even with these three stars in the cast, it never got a theatrical release and instead went straight to DVD and Blu-ray. The DVD sales made $3.7 million, while the movie itself cost $11 million to produce, so it took a big loss. What was the name of The Rock’s tough as nails cop character?
The Other Guys
The Rock pretty much made fun of himself in The Other Guys. His scenes with Samuel L. Jackson as the hot shot cops tearing through New York City in pursuit of justice serve to mock the dumb, mindless action movies that have made Dwayne Johnson a bankable star. It’s also a brilliant comedy with something to say about not just the action movies it’s parodying, but also the banking crisis, because it’s an Adam McKay film and he has a masterful way of making hilarious, absurdist comedies and slipping social messages under the radar. But who did The Rock play?
Get Smart
Get Smart was a respectably good movie. It wasn’t great by any means, nor did it live up to the standard set by comedy mastermind Mel Brooks in the TV series it was based on, but still, it’s a pretty decent spy comedy. Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway are a well-matched pair of leads, and the story is quite engaging. Get Smart is no Austin Powers, but it’ll do. The Rock plays the CONTROL agent that Carell’s Maxwell Smart looks up to, but what is the role?
Gridiron Gang
Despite its on the nose title and the fact it stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, this is actually quite a thoughtful and emotionally touching drama. It tells the story of a football coach at a detention center for teenage delinquents who wants to use the sport to keep the kids under his wing out of trouble once they’re released from the center, like street gangs and drug dealing. The movie co-stars the rapper Xzibit and critics, while lamenting the “clichéd” execution of the story, felt that the lead role fit The Rock “like a glove.” But what was his name?
Moana
Last year’s Disney animated movie Moana didn’t make Frozen money or Zootopia money, but it was still successful, raking in over $600 million, and it was certainly beloved by critics. According to the consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, where the movie has a near-perfect 96% score, “With a title character as three-dimensional as its lush animation and a story that adds fresh depth to Disney’s time-tested formula, Moana is truly a family-friendly adventure for the ages.” The Rock voices a demigod character in the movie. What’s his name?
Race to Witch Mountain
Dwayne Johnson sure loves remaking movies from the 1970s Hollywood revisionist era, doesn’t he? In 1975, Disney produced Escape to Witch Mountain, which was based on the book of the same title from the late 1960s. In the 21st century, they decided to make a “modern reimagining” of it, at first called simply Witch Mountain, but later Race to Witch Mountain, which seemed to them to be an apter title. Johnson starred alongside his San Andreas co-star Carla Gugino – what was his role in the movie?
G.I. Joe: Retaliation
Who’d have thought a movie based on Hasbro toys could be a huge hit? A couple of years after Transformers became one of the biggest movie franchises in the world, Paramount was looking to repeat its success with the G.I. Joe characters. The first movie was moderately successful, but the second, Retaliation, did ever better at the box office thanks to its secret weapon: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He worked the same magic for G.I. Joe that he did for The Fast and the Furious franchise. But which character did he play?
Doom
Movies based on video games are never good. As much as Hollywood might try to recreate the awe and wonder and excitement of a video game on the screen, it always fails. Resident Evil, Assassin’s Creed, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat – they all suck! And Doom is no different. The Rock only plays a supporting role, since 2005 was a short while before his top billing days, but that doesn’t make it any less his fault that the movie blows. It was also a box office bomb, as well as a critical failure. But who did The Rock play?
Walking Tall
Early on in his film career, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson starred in Walking Tall, a remake of an earlier thriller that was far better received by critics and audiences. The original Walking Tall, released in 1973, told the true story of Sheriff Buford Pusser, who took the law into his own hands to stop the trade of illegal moonshine in his town. For the remake, the moonshine was changed to drugs, the lead character was changed to a war veteran, and his name was changed. What was it changed to?
The Mummy Returns
Unfortunately, The Mummy has been recently rebooted and it was terrible. It was supposed to kick-start some huge, interconnected franchise of movies involving the Mummy, Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde etc. Will that happen now that the movie bombed? Who knows? But back when The Mummy franchise was successful, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was in the second Brendan Fraser movie (The Rock’s second Fraser link after replacing him for Journey 2). He played The Scorpion King and even got his own spin-off, but what was the character’s real name?
Be Cool
Be Cool has a crazy cast. It’s based on an Elmore Leonard book and it was directed by F. Gary Gray of The Fate of the Furious and Straight Outta Compton. The movie stars – are you ready? – John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Vince Vaughn, Cedric the Entertainer, Harvey Keitel, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Danny DeVito, James Woods, Aerosmith, Wyclef Jean, The Black Eyed Peas, Gene Simmons, Fred Durst, RZA, Kobe Bryant, and The Pussycat Dolls. It’s easy to lose a character name or two in that frenzy of A-listers. Can you remember The Rock’s name?
Central Intelligence
Quite possibly The Rock’s biggest competition right now for the Biggest Movie Star in the World title is comedy superstar Kevin Hart. So, what was Hollywood’s response to this information? Put them in a movie together! Thus came Central Intelligence, an action comedy that combines The Rock’s action movie draw and Kevin Hart’s wacky comedy draw. It worked, since the movie made over $200 million worldwide. It did not fare so well with critics, but oh well. What was The Rock’s character’s name?
Tooth Fairy
Tooth Fairy is probably a movie Dwayne Johnson wants you to forget. It’s a really dumb family fantasy comedy about a hockey player who’s a jerk and his punishment is serving as the tooth fairy in real life for a week. It should come as no wonder that critics panned it, with the Rotten Tomatoes consensus (where it has an 18% “rotten” score) calling it “unacceptably dull.” Interestingly, Seth MacFarlane and Stephen Merchant also appear in the movie. They should be above this! Anyway, what’s The Rock’s character called?
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has to take over everything in his path. He took over The Fast and the Furious movies from Vin Diesel, he took over the G.I. Joe movies from Channing Tatum, and he took over Jules Verne from Jules Verne. After Brendan Fraser starred in Journey to the Center of the Earth and then disappeared into obscurity, The Rock took the reins for its sequel. He’s also rumored to be working on another film in the Jules Verne Cinematic Universe, based on From the Earth to the Moon. What is his character’s name?
Planet 51
This animated sci-fi comedy was originally titled Planet One, but a corporate brand with that name caused a scene and so they changed it to Planet 51 as a reference to the extra-terrestrial presence in Area 51. It stars the voice talents of Dwayne Johnson, Justin Long, Jessica Biel, Gary Oldman, Seann William Scott (aka Stifler), and John Cleese, so it’s a heck of a cast. The movie is a parody of American pulp science-fiction stories, but oddly it was produced in Spain (at $70 million, it was the most expensive movie made in Spain).
The Game Plan
If a tear wasn’t brought to your eye at the end of The Game Plan when little Peyton has an allergic reaction and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson heroically carries her to the hospital to save her, then your heart is made of stone. It’s a schmaltzy Disney movie, but The Game Plan ain’t half bad. It’s a family comedy, it’s not Citizen Kane, but it’s okay. The Rock plays an NFL player whose illegitimate daughter unexpectedly shows up at his house one day, and he has to contend with that. So, what was The Rock’s character called?
Snitch
This movie was sold as an action thriller, since that’s the best way to market a movie with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson front and center on the poster, but it deserves much more credit than that. It’s a crime drama about drug trafficking, and Johnson’s co-stars are Jon Bernthal, Susan Sarandon, and The Wire’s Michael K. Williams, so it’s a heavy duty piece of cinema. It was directed by Ric Roman Waugh, who’s mainly a stunt guy, whose upcoming movie Shot Caller about gang warfare is coming soon. Anyway, what was The Rock’s role in Snitch?
Southland Tales
This movie’s a weird one. For starters, it bombed at the box office. It cost $17 million to make and it only made back about $370,000. It boasts a heck of a cast, headlined by Dwayne Johnson alongside Seann William Scott as twins, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mandy Moore, Justin Timberlake, Wallace Shawn from Princess Bride, Kevin Smith as a legless Iraq War veteran, Amy Poehler, Christopher Lambert, and Avon from The Wire. That’s a weird cast, right? It should’ve drawn a huge crowd. But no, it was a bomb. It’s a satirical commentary on the military industrial complex and where America is heading. It’s not a popcorn movie. What is The Rock’s role in it?
The Rundown
The first of a few collaborations with Seann William Scott – Southland Tales and Planet 51 – Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson first started to become an action hero with The Rundown. He’s now basically the new Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it all started here, with this jungle-set action comedy directed by Peter Berg. Peter Berg has gone on to make some great movies, like Deepwater Horizon, Lone Survivor, and Patriots Day. But what was the name of The Rock’s character in the movie?
Reno 911!: Miami
Remember Reno 911!, that show on Comedy Central? You might not. It had a small, but devoted fan base. It was a spoof of police-based reality series like COPS. Anyway, it got turned into a movie that was moderately successful. The critics thought that the humor of the film would be inaccessible to anyone who wasn’t previously a fan of the TV show, but that’s who the movie’s for. It’s not for anyone else. So, all in all, that’s a success, right? Anyway, Dwayne Johnson had a cameo in the movie as a SWAT agent nicknamed “The Condor.” What was his real name?