SC On The Marine (Part 1)

You CAN see this... but you shouldn't.

Why did I watch this?  Oh right, because of a series of unusual circumstances which are as follows:

-It was the Sunday of Wrestlemania.
-A local Blockbuster was closing and as such had slashed prices on everything including the furniture.
-This was free.  I shit you not.  And there were still at least 20 copies of it on the shelf.  They couldn't give this shit away!
-I'm indifferent to John Cena, but hate his "Thuganomics" bullshit and his "rapping".
-I had an hour-and-a-half to kill.

I could have bought a wire shelf.  A WIRE SHELF!

Author's Note: I considered playing the movie again to take screenshots of the more absurd moments of the movie, but that would require playing the movie again.  So if I can't find it within 10 seconds of searching I'm giving up and throwing in something random.

And so, it begins.  After resisting the urge to hit the stop button when a trailer for Turistas preceded the main menu and when the WWE Films logo popped up we see a group of marines getting the crap beat out of them at an al-Qaeda base in Iraq.  Unfortunately, none of them are John Cena.

No, John is hiding just outside the room they're in.  Nevermind how he got there, it's John Cena holding an automatic rifle and wearing camo facepaint which may or may not be the wrong color for his environment.  He reports in as "Ghost 2" and is told not to engage, but goes against the order and barges in, shooting wildly and somehow not hitting the marines.  At the same time either the al-Qaeda members manage to miss him entirely from twelve feet away or Cena is no-selling being shot dozens of times.  Either is possible.

Is it sad I need to say this picture ISN'T from the movie?

As the fight progresses Cena hides behind a pillar, which breaks apart in an amazing display of bad CG.  He then steps out and takes an al-Qaeda member hostage, using him as a human shield.  The problem is he's holding the guy a couple feet to the right of him, leaving himself wide open to be shot anywhere from head to toe.  That doesn't matter though, as the other members shoot the human shield anyway.

Once everyone except (somehow) the marines is dead Cena asks them if they're ready to go home, complete with the trademark Cena smirk that makes rational human beings want to reach through the screen and backhand the smug bastard.

Cut to Cena and the other marines running out of a tunnel to see a bunch of insurgents running around firing into the air while a U.S. helicopter hovers over seemingly random spots and drops bombs.  Trust me, this looks more goofy than it does cool.  The marines ask how they're going to get around the battlefield.  Cena says they aren't going around it, but through it.  Since this monumentally stupid idea might be interesting and/or difficult to film the scene abruptly changes to a Marine Corps operations building in Germany.

Cena is working out with other marines when he's called out by his superior.  It's here we learn his full name is John Triton but fuck it, we know he's just playing John Cena sans jean shorts.  Hell, he's even playing a character named John.  Just give up the ghost and have him enter every scene wearing a heavyweight championship spinner belt and ugly merch.

YEEEEAAAA BOOOIIIII! (with apologies to Flava Flav)

They meet outside where Cena is told that he's being honorably discharged from the Marine Corp for disobeying a direct order.  When Cena asks about an appeal he's told that they have "approached it from every angle" and won't accept it.  

I'm ignoring that the military isn't accepting his appeal even though they kind of have to, otherwise the appeal process would be broken since it was said they won't ACCEPT the appeal, not that they wouldn't approve it, so I can mention that this is not how honorable discharges work.  They do not get handed out to people who exhibit misconduct like, you know, DISOBEYING A DIRECT ORDER!

Looks like Cena violated the law (sunglasses) and order.

YEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!

Cena returns to his home as incredibly out of place flute music plays.  He gets out of a cab and is embraced in the driveway by his wife, played by Kelly Carlson.  I'm still not sure whether this role is more dignified than playing a porn star, porn director, AND porn producer on Nip/Tuck. She jumps into his arms, they spin, she strokes his hair, and she says "You're home."

Oh well, obvious joke for line stating the obvious.

John carries his wife to the bedroom and everything suddenly goes into slow-motion.  He throws his wife on the bed, but I swear it looks like he pretended the bed was a table and he did a spinebuster on her.  Insert more awkward flute music and another abrupt cut as now they're in their underwear kissing on the kitchen counter.  I swear, if Cena has a sex scene in this movie I will kill everyone.  EVERYONE!

They have a brief exchange about how being (married to) a marine is rough.  The entire time Cena has that wise ass smirk on his face again before he picks up his wife and carries her off.  When she asks where they're going, he says "To make me happy."  Oh dear CHRIST, NO!

Oh thank God, another scene change.

Now we see a city, which one isn't really clear, as- wait, Robert Patrick is in this movie?!  Why T-1000 why?!  Anyway, Patrick talks to a guy in a car, gets out, and walks in slow-motion down the street.  I'd start a slow-motion counter but that would only serve to make this article even longer.  And I can't count that high when I'm pissed off.

He enters a jewelry store, the camera does an entirely necessary 360-degree spin, he walks past the one security guard, then promptly knocks the guy out, pulls out a gun like he was looking for change for a vending machine, then pauses and says "Everybody down."

But he doesn't just say the line.  He does it in such a nonchalant, unusual way that there's only one way I can describe his delivery.

He Walkens the line.

Everybody down.

His buddies bust in holding guns as he demands that an employee behind a keypad-locked bulletproof glass door open up.  He takes a woman hostage to get him to open it, only to find that the woman was another accomplice planted in the store for this very purpose.

Once he's stolen an extremely valuable set of diamonds the employee suddenly tells him to hit him so it looks real to the cops.  Dude, he has a gun pointed at your face.  I think that qualifies as real.  Patrick then shoots the guy in the head (in sloooow-mooootiooooon) and exits after making a long-winded speech about how he loves the state of South Carolina and bids everyone goodbye.  This sounds like a crappy opening to Smackdown more than anything else.

Oh, did I gloss over how mindfuck stupid this last scene was?  Well, here goes nothing.

How in the unholy hell did Patrick get one of his men hired at the jewelry store he was going to rob?  Not only that, they later reveal that the diamonds he stole came in 24 hours ago.  So Patrick figured out where the diamonds were going, then got an inside man hired there as security for the vault, coordinated when that guy would be working, and went after the diamonds?!  Even if you say he paid off the guy who was already working there, how would he know who to pay off if he figured out on a day's notice where the diamonds were going?!

It's like TNA wrote this shit.

After that mess Patrick heads for the getaway car with his cronies, which is several feet away from the store for some reason.  As they leave the store "More Human Than Human" starts playing, which sounds really awkward when the moaning starts and they're still just walking down the street--you guessed it--IN SLOW MOTION.

A police car, and I mean ONE police car, ONE, responds to an armed robbery in which a man was murdered.  I'm not even a third of the way through this movie and... you know what, I need Jim Cornette for this.

Company, movie, whatever.

Patrick proceeds to open fire on the police car before a random black guy pulls out a goddamn bazooka and blows up the cop car.  The catch is he does this when the car is no more than 20 feet away from Patrick.  Of course he somehow doesn't get hurt and, of course, it's in slow motion.  The getaway car swings around and, I swear, Patrick gets in the front driver-side door and rides away.  You couldn't even get a car from the right country for this shot?!

See, here's the thing about this movie.  The worst parts about it don't involve John Cena.  In fact, he seems like one of the few people really trying.  He still has the acting skills of a sheet of cardboard with a face drawn on it, but there's at least some effort coming from him.  That and he looks way better with hair, but maybe that's just me.  Everything else is just poorly-shot, poorly-written, poorly-directed, and just plain poor overall.

I know I just posted this, but:

There.  Rant over... for now.

Cut back to the crime scene where they show a close up of the guy Patrick shot in the head with no bullet wound or blood.  The detective is astute enough to point out that the robbers "didn't bother with any of the small stuff."

...

Why would someone rob a store and not take the most valuable- GODDAMN THIS MOVIE!

After that entirely unnecessary scene we see John Cena working at the security desk of Nondescript Business Inc.  He works alongside Overweight Comedic Relief Guy #4 who says that, despite Cena's being bored and restless with this job, it does have its benefits, saying that in two to three years Cena can move up to management.  When John asks how long the guy's worked there he says nine years, to which he then asks "Then how come you're not in management?"

Oh, John Cena.  I slap my knee at thee.

 Before anymore high-larious hijinks can ensue, they get called to a worker's office to deal with a psycho ex-boyfriend.  No really, they officially address him over their radios as "psycho ex-boyfriend."

End Part 1, because there's just so much shit that this is going to take a long time to cover.