Having eased himself into the acting business with a supporting role in The Mummy Returns, which then parlayed into standalone solo spin-off The Scorpion King, Dwayne Johnson settled on The Rundown as his first-ever leading role in a major blockbuster that didn’t have the benefit of a pre-existing franchise to rely on.
In one respect it was a shrewd move that payed huge dividends, because there aren’t many better action movies The Rock has lent his name to in the 20 years since Peter Berg’s Amazonian buddy caper first landed in theaters. The downside – which is admittedly a major one – is that the film tanked at the box office after failing to recoup its $85 million budget in ticket sales.
Johnson has made a habit of doing little more than simply playing variations of himself in a string of expensive adventures that don’t require the stretching of his acting muscles, and the trace DNA of the A-list megastar he would become is all over The Rundown.
He wears a tan shirt and heads off into the jungle for one thing, but he also delivers an effortlessly charismatic turn that finds him sparring against a scene partner when they’re not fighting for their lives, all wrapped up in the easily-digestible package of fistfights, shootouts, and one-liners.
It’s nothing short of a travesty that The Rundown tanked in the way that it did, but the offensively underrated and criminally overlooked escapade has at least long since secured cult favorite status. Even now, FlixPatrol outing it as the third most-watched feature on Max’s global viewership charts indicates that fans of the genre and The Rock are going to be revisiting it for quite some time to come.
Published: Jul 13, 2023 02:16 am