Search - The Marine Two-Pack on DVD

Cena & Dibiase Take Turns Being "The Marine"

D.P. | California | 02/04/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"THE MARINE
John Cena plays John Triton, a Marine who was discharged after disobeying a direct order in order to save his fellow soldiers in war. He returns home to his wife Kate (Kelly Carlson) and after not being able to adjust to his homelife so easliy, they take a vacation. Unfortunally John ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time as he crosses paths with a group of jewel thieves at a gas station led by a killer named Rome (Robert Patrick) and after things don't go as planned, they go on the run & kidnap Kate as a hostage. From there, John goes after the thieves to save his wife but encounter many obsticals along with the way while the theives have problems of their own such as not being to trust each other & Kate being tougher than she looks.

This is one of those generic action movies where the plot itself was very simple & something the average person can understand. The acting isn't much as Cena had no previous acting experience before this role so his dialog is very limited but did do well & was believeable in his role. They have good action scenes from a car chase to fist fights to tons of explosions. The most annoying thing here though was that they tried to add comedy to this movie which didn't work at all. For example, when the bad guys are in the jungle running from the police...that's not the time to start making jokes about "rock candy" & getting calls about their cable TV package eventhough I did get a chuckle as the priceless look Patrick gave after the "he's like the Terminator" line.

While the DVD included both the unrated & theatrical versions of the movie, the DVD extras include all the WWE promotional features, footage of the World Premiere, various features on John Cena, and a "Making Of" featurette.

THE MARINE 2
This is the sixth movie to come from WWE Studios however what makes this one "special" this is the first sequel they've done...however, this is the third time they've done a movie with a very similar story. Now just like how "The Marine" was the movie debut for John Cena, this sequel is the acting debut for Ted Dibiase (Jr.).

Now this movie is one of those type of sequels where it has absolutely no connection to the previous movie with the exception of it being a very similar plot so don't expect to see any reference or characters you saw in the first Marine movie (sorry John Cena fans). The story here is about a man named Joe Linwood (Dibiase) who's a Marine & after coming off a mission, he decided to go on vacation with his wife Robin to an exotic island resort that's owned by a client of hers. Everything starts out nice before terrorist attack at the grand opening party & takes everyone hostage including Joe's wife. From there, Joe is determined to go in & get her but has to deal with the terrorist themselves along with other obstacles like politicians trying to not make this an international incident, a retired Army soldier who doesn't "want to be a hero", mercenaries who work for the highest price, and finding out throughout the movie that not everyone can be trusted.

As usual when it comes to sequels, they all get compared to the original. What this & the first Marine have in common is the story of a Marine being in the wrong place at the wrong time with his wife being taken hostage & with him going to save her. Besides that basis along with the involvement of certain elements that go into an action movie, that's really the only thing this movie has in common with it as Dibiase does more "acting" as far as dialog than Cena did while his character was more "realistic". There was more dept & development as far as the story itself goes along with them learning from the first film & not trying to mix bad humor in with the movie. One of the big differences here was unlike how "The Marine" had a heavy amount of their action based off explosions, the action here was more diverse as you had a minor amount of explosions with more emphasis on gunplay & fighting using the Muay Thai style.

DVD extras include deleted & extended scenes along with a montage of various deleted shots. Various "behind the scenes" features, a look at Ted Dibiase, and various takes of the Muay Thai fights complete the extras...and as a side note, I'm sorry but there are no commentary tracks.



In the end, first Marine was a good old action flick that you used to see back in the 80's that was heavily based on explosions & fist fight scenes while the sequel was more "plot" driven. Both movies are worth taking a look at."