Former wrestler, current movie star, future president.
I don’t think it’s too controversial to call Dwayne The Rock Johnson the greatest human being in the world. The third generation wrestler helped make WWF the biggest it’s ever been back in the late 90s, and quickly sought to transfer his good looks, impressive physique and brilliant comic timing to the big screen. Receiving a record $5.5 salary for a first-time leading man for The Scorpion King, Johnson switched between mid-budget action films and family comedies until truly becoming a superstar around the time he joined Fast & Furious franchise, eventually being crowned the world’s highest paid actor in 2016.
While everyone loves The Rock, a lot of people would (wrongly) suggest that he doesn’t always appear in very good movies. With his remake of Jumanji out this week, we thought this was the perfect time to create a completely accurate ranking of all the movies he’s starred in (A quick disclaimer: This is every movie that he is the lead in, or at least has a poster that makes him look like he is. Which means we haven’t included things like his debut role in The Mummy Returns, his turn as the villain in Get Smart, memorable small parts in The Other Guys and Be Cool, and a handful of cameos).
If ya smell what The Rock is cooking, let’s get started…
26. Doom
There are about five minutes in Doom that are totally worth your time: late in the film, the camera suddenly switches to show the action from space marine Karl Urban’s POV, and the next shoot-out plays out from the game’s iconic first-person perspective. That bit is amazing, but the other 100 minutes of the film are just a horribly dull, dark and murky Aliens rip-off, and it’s not enough to save it from bottom place. There are worse films in the world, but you’ll go a long way to find one as boring as Doom.
25. Walking Tall
Johnson’s first spate of movies semi-successfully tried to establish him as Arnold Schwarzenegger for a new generation, and on paper, Walking Tall seemed like a decent vehicle for that. It’s a remake of a cult 70s movie (itself loosely based on a true story) of a veteran returning to his home town to find it riddled with crime, and cleans it up with both the law and his fists. In practice though, it’s an incredibly nothing movie that clocks in at only 76 minutes excluding credits. The villain is forgettable (Neal McDonough), the fight scenes are boring, The Rock has shockingly little chemistry with his sidekick Johnny Konxville, and the whole film is shot in Canada and looks fake-as-hell, meaning it has absolutely none of the grit or atmosphere a movie like this needs to be effective.
24. Gridiron Gang
Johnson’s first non-action movie leading role was this boilerplate ‘based-on-a-true-story’ tale of an inspiration coach who trains a team of juvenile delinquents to play American football and/or belief in themselves. You know the drill. It’s a nice story, but it’s very dull. These movies are always dull. Coach Carter. Remember The Titans. Why do Americans like them so much?
23. The Game Plan
Following in the tradition of classics like Kindergarten Cop, and Vin Diesel’s The Pacifier, this Disney comedy had Johnson play an arrogant NFL player who discovers he has an eight year old daughter, and has to learn, laugh, grow etc etc etc. It’s not very good, but it’s success meant that Johnson would spend the next few years concentrating on family movies and denying us the action hits we so craved. So I kind of hate it.
22. Baywatch
Starsky and Hutch and 21 Jump Street were both cheesy TV shows that made for pretty fun, tongue-in-cheek remakes. But somehow teaming The Rock with Zac Efron for Baywatch did not have the same success. The ill-fated adaption takes a bog-standard drug-running plot, adds in the duo of The Rock and Zac Efron, and sprinkles it with lots of Instagram-style shots of people running down the beach. What should be a simple home run is ruined by a painfully unfunny script. Joke after joke falls flat, and it’s far, far too long. As a ten-minute Funny Or Die sketch, it would have been fun. At just over two hours, it becomes a slog.
21. The Tooth Fairy
Imagine if The Rock was fairy!?!! LOL ROFL!! And he had wings!?! And even wears a tutu!?! LOL ROFL LOL!!! That’s essentially the only joke of The Tooth Fairy, which is basically just The Santa Clause with Dwayne Johnson instead of Tim Allen, and tooth fairies subbing in for Father Christmas. Like a lot of live-action Disney comedies, this is loud, broad, and kind of insufferable if you are over 10. But if you’re still in single digits, you might enjoy it.
20. Planet 51
Planet 51 is a sub-Pixar, sub-Dreamworks, Spanish-made CGI animation where Johnson plays a human astronaut who lands on a planet that resembles 1950s suburbia, only filled with little green men. If you are eight years old, and it comes on TV during half term when you have nothing better to do, it’s ok.
19. Faster
A couple of months before he joined the Fast & Furious family with Fast Five, The Rock also appeared in a car-based action movie called Faster. It’s all very confusing, not helped by the fact that Faster is a completely unremarkable revenge thriller. Even if you have seen it, you’ve probably forgotten about it.
18. Empire State
This is a weird one – in 2013, just as Johnson was hitting true superstardom, he popped up in this straight-to-DVD true crime thriller. Despite what the box tells you, he’s only really got a supporting role, playing a detective chasing security-employee gone-bad Liam Hemworth. For a high-end DTV product, it’s perfectly acceptable.
17. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
The bland, 2008 CGI-heavy kiddie adventure adaption of Journey to the Centre of the Earth got a bland, CGI-heavy sequel, this time adapting another Jules Verne book. Johnson replaced Brendan Fraser with Dwayne Johnson in the mysterious heroic uncle/stepfather role, and this time they went to a mysterious island instead of the Earth’s core. It’s all pretty average, but The Rock does ride on a giant bee, so that bumps it a few places up the list.
16. Race to Witch Mountain
A remake of a beloved series 70s kid’s fantasy movies, out of all the Disney movies Johnson made during his family film period in the late 00s, Race to Witch Mountain is probably the most bearable as it’s played relatively straight. The frequent mugging to the camera of The Gameplan and The Tooth Fairy is gone, making The Rock’s attempts to re-unite two alien kids with their spaceship solidly entertaining.
15. Snitch
While Snitch looks like just another B-tier action picture, it’s trying to be a lot more than that. Based on a true story, The Rock plays the owner of a trucking firm whose teenage son semi-accidentally ends up being delivered a cardboard box full of drugs. Due to America’s draconian drug laws, he faces a mandatory 10 years in prison unless he rats on those higher up the chain. Desperately searching for a loophole to get his son out of this Kafkaesque scenario, Johnson himself decides to infiltrate the criminal underworld so that he can offer up enough information to reduce the sentence. It’s an interesting premise, with some admirable stuff to say about the war on drugs, and a strong supporting cast (Michael K Williams, Jon Bernthal, Susan Sarandon), that makes up for the bland action scenes.
14. The Scorpion King
After making his motion picture debut proper in the opening flashback of The Mummy Returns, The Rock had his first starring role in this ancient Egypt-set spin-off. The parallels to Schwarzenegger’s big breakthrough Conan The Barbarian are obvious, and The Rock can certainly wear a loincloth and wield a sword with the best of them. The movie came out at the peak of wrestling’s late 90s/early 00s popularity, and the novelty of The Rock being in the film made this a massive deal to a lot of teenagers at the time. In 2017, there are now many more films with The Rock so it’s less special, but it’s a lot of fun.
13. Hercules
Twelve years after The Scorpion King, The Rock returned for a second stab at a swords & sandals slash-em-up, now a bona fide movie star. Not much has changed though. Despite a bigger budget, it’s still a good dumb, fun time, with the added bonus of clocking in at under 100 minutes. There is also a scene where The Rock suplexes a horse. What more can you ask for?
12. Central Intelligence
There’s a throwback feel to a lot of The Rock’s films – in an era full of multi-part franchises and shared universes, he tends to make one-and-done versions of existing formulas that make the most of his charm. And outside of some state-of-the-art de-aging effects in the opening, Central Intelligence could have come out in 1986. It’s buddy cop movie as standard as they come, and buddy movies rely on the likability of the central duo. And The Rock and Kevin Hart are as likeable as any bankable stars in Hollywood right now.
11. The Fate of the Furious
The eighth Fast & Furious didn’t really keep up the hot streak the franchise had been having, but it’s still a very solid action film. Plus, it saw The Rock and Jason Statham team up for their own side-quest, ahead of a proposed spin-off for the duo (It’s a bit weird that Statham’s character murdered about half of the heroes’ ragtag ‘family’ and now they’re all buds, but still). Plus, at one point a submarine fired a torpedo at The Rock, and he grabs it in his bare hands and throws it back.
10. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
The remake of the beloved Robin Williams movie updates ‘sucked into a board game’ concept to be about a cursed video game. And while that sounds like a terrible idea, it actually makes the film a bit like Big, in that Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Karen Gillan essentially play teenagers trapped in their adult bodies. It’s a simple concept that allows for some genuine laughs and a positive message about how it’s what is on the inside that counts, alongside pretty solid jungle action.
9. G.I. Joe: Retaliation
An absolute casserole of movie, but when it gets things right, it’s gloriously nuts. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra wasn’t exactly beloved by audiences, so Paramount literally threw everything at the wall to see what would stick in part two (including delaying the film a year to add more Channing Tatum, who gets killed off in the first reel). The Rock takes lead billing as newbie Roadblock, The RZA plays a ninja master, and Bruce Willis (in full not-giving-a-fuck mode) joins as the ‘original Joe’. As you’d expect, it’s all over the shop, but when it’s good it’s wonderful – there’s a cliff-side ninja fight that’s basically poetry, and Jonathan Pryce’s bad guy, who plays Angry Birds while trying to take over the world, is a delight.
8. San Andreas
Another enjoyable throwback. Remember the 90s, where big disaster movies like Armageddon, Dante’s Peak and Independence Day filled multiplexes? San Andreas invokes those days, with a scientifically-nonsense plot about an earthquake tearing apart the West Coast of America. Original, it definitely isn’t, but it hits all the right beats, and literally the sort of thing hungover Sunday afternoons were made for.
7. Southland Tales
After the cult success of his debut Donnie Darko, all eyes were on director Richard Kelly’s ambitious sci-fi follow-up. Unfortunately, that hype did not last long, with the film being booed at the Cannes Film Festival, and barely being released in cinemas. It’s easy to see why – this wannabe-epic satire about World War III and the apocalypse is basically impossible to follow. But what it lacks in coherence, it makes up in completely unforgettable weirdness. Justin Timberlake plays disfigured solider who randomly starts singing The Killers. Sarah Michelle Gellar plays a psychic pornstar. Seann William Scott has a dual role as twins on opposite sides of the law. And in one of his first real acting showcases, The Rock plays an amnesiac Arnold Schwarzenegger analogue who might be the saviour of mankind. Southland Tales is a very acquired taste, but if you can get on its wavelength, it’s a one-of-a-kind experience.
6. Fast Five
The fifth entry into the franchise was the one that truly embraced the silliness of the series and changed it from being about illegal street racing to unstoppable international super agents. It also marked the debut of The Rock’s U.S. Security Service agent Luke Hobbs. The film’s knowing sense of fun took a lot of critics by surprise, and is often regarded as the series’ high-point. Watching it back, it’s not quite as wild as the two movies that would follow it, but the finale with the bank vault chained to the back of a supercar destroying Rio, is still one of the greatest action scenes of the 21st century.
5. Furious 7
Sure, Furious 7 is a bloated mess, and suffered from delays following the tragic death of Paul Walker. But it’s such an enjoyable, crazy feast to gorge yourself on. The brilliantly-bonkers cars jumping between skyscrapers scene in Dubai is worth the entrance fee alone. And the Wiz Khalfia-scored finale where Walker drives off into the sunset one last time remains genuinely moving, no matter how many times it gets meme’d. Plus there’s the bit where The Rock’s in the hospital, turns to his daughter and goes “Daddy’s gotta go to work” and he flexes and makes the cast on his broken arm explode. Truly, that’s what cinema was made for.
4. Fast & Furious 6
It’s a tough call, but in this writer’s opinion part seven remains the pinnacle of the Fat & Furious series. It has everything you could ask for in a F&F movie: plenty of Vin Diesel going on about family, Michelle Rodriguez having a scrap with MMA star Gina Carano in a London Underground station, the stunt team from The Raid, the final appearance of Gal Gadot in the franchise, and even a Rita Ora cameo. What more could you want? And that’s not even mentioning the final half-hour long action scene featuring an expertly-staged multi-person brawl in and around a cargo plane speeding down a runway.
3. Moana
Following Frozen as part of the new Disney renaissance that has seen their CGI animation finally come out of Pixar’s shadow, Moana is absolutely beautiful. On paper, it’s nothing out of the ordinary, with a young Polynesian princess heading to sea out on a big adventure to find a mythical hero (voiced by The Rock) and save her homeland. In practice, it’s visually stunning, exhilarating ride, that switches effortlessly between action, comedy, pathos and catchy songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda. It’s also nice to see Johnson get to embrace his Samoan heritage on-screen.
2. Pain & Gain
If Pain & Gain was directed by the Coen Brothers instead of Michael Bay, it would be acknowledged as the savagely clever movie it secretly is. Based on the true story of three body builders (Johnson, Mark Wahlberg and Anthony Mackie) turned incompetent criminals, it is a wonderfully brutal take-down of the American Dream. Everyone thinks they’re Tony Montana when they’re all actually just idiots, starring in a crass, vulgar film about crass, vulgar entitled Americans. It’s also the perfect role for The Rock – a genuine character with depth and development, but also one that required his cartoonish build and presence.
1. Welcome To The Jungle
There’s a school of thought that Dwayne Johnson is a brilliant movie star but doesn’t pick the best films to be in. Everyone seems to love The Rock, but not necessarily love his films. I’d like to think this list proves that somewhat untrue, but Welcome To The Jungle is the platonic ideal of a Rock movie. It’s your standard buddy movie – bounty hunter Rock has to go and get rich kid drop-out Seann William Scott back from Latin America, and along the way they run afoul of evil diamond harvesters. But it just does everything right. The comedy is genuinely funny. The action scenes are violent and exciting. Christopher Walken is a brilliant villain. The always-great Rosario Dawson is a kick-ass sidekick. There’s even an Arnold Schwarzenegger cameo. Welcome To The Jungle was never going to win any Oscars or be regarded as a classic, but it’s an incredibly enjoyable action-adventure that doesn’t put a foot wrong. Yet is seemed to have been a bit forgotten in the current superhero-dominated landscape. Seek it out.
Agree? Disagree? Let us know.
