When Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson began acting, with a mostly-CGI cameo in The Mummy 2: The Mummiest, any fans of him from his wrestler days thought that he’d become the next Schwarzenegger. With charisma oozing out of every pore and legitimate athleticism, it seemed a perfect fit. So first there was the The Scorpion King, which was very direct to DVD, but hey … it was his first starring movie. But after a few failed starts, Dwayne Johnson turned to kid’s movies, playing a modern day version of Hulk Hogan’s old incongruous one joke movies in The Tooth Fairy.  And then, it was a miracle when he showed up in Fast Five and immediately made every scene he was in interesting. After doing the in the GI Joe sequel and Michael Bay’s Pain and Gain, the old school Rock fans were saying “Finally, The Rock has come back to action movies!”

When Hercules was announced, it seemed like a great idea. The Rock vs mythological monsters? How could it fail? Then it was discovered that it would be based on a lesser known series of comics from Radical Comics called The Thracian Wars which had a far more realistic take on the story. Well, we thought, that might still work. The Rock could still smash heads in a grittier version of the classic tale. And then we found the director was Brett Ratner and we shuddered. After all, the guy hasn’t made a good movie since Rush Hour and to a lesser extent, Rush Hour 2. And then it was decided that the movie would be PG-13 and we said “C’mon, why are you making this so hard? We just want to see The Rock fight the Hydra already!” Well, I have some good news for you. You do get to see that. Sort of.

So Hercules starts as a narrator tells a shouty version of his legend, including showing a montage of him killing several big monsters. But then we discover it’s all a ploy; there are no monsters, just a very strong and talented mercenary who has been spreading the legend to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies and find lucrative paying jobs. Hercules is joined by a team of classic archetypes: the sarcastic sociopath Autolycus (named for the mythological son of Hermes, played by Rufus Sewell), mute animalistic Tydeus (named for a Trojan hero from The Iliad, played by Aksel Hennie), Amazonian archer Atalanta (named for mythological Greek virgin huntress, played by Ingrid Bolsø Berdal), and vague prophet Amphiaraus (actually a seer in Greek mythology, played by Ian McShane). Rounding them out is Iolaus, Hercules’ nephew, played by Reece Ritchie. Does each have a minor character arc? No? Are there at least almost character arcs? You betcha!

Okay, so Hercules (amusingly, the film translates his name from the Greek version, Heracles, but that’s Hollywood for you) has an arc, with a pretty serious and dark backstory. But although The Rock does his best to bring a bit of pathos and depth to the character’s history, the characterization is paper thin and pacing is all over the place. Unfortunately, Brett Ratner doesn’t do the best job here. This is a surprisingly violent film, considering that there is absolutely no blood or gore, yet there’s a bit of profanity and a single bared breast. It’s very weird to me, because it seems like it’s not really right for PG-13, yet it’s not nearly bloody enough to be rated R. But honestly, it should’ve been. That would’ve made the frequent fight scenes more believable and less cartoonish. Ah, but here is the real issue with the movie: it’s tone is inconsistent. It can’t figure out if it wants to be cartoonish and ridiculous or serious and hardcore. Instead, it has a bunch of fun fight scenes and a lot of boring scenes without fighting.

John Hurt plays the King of Thrace who hires Hercules and his band of mercs to take out the bandit leader Rhesus, and perhaps not everything is as it seems? And he also has a boring daughter, but she’s boring and pointless, forget her character. Instead, it’s the team that works almost entirely. They quip and riff off each other, and demonstrate killer efficiency in battle like Lord of the Rings superwarriors. I haven’t read the original graphic novel the movie is based on, so perhaps the story works better there. But here, it’s just a series of set pieces watching The Rock and company do some fun stuff. Sure, the take on it, that Hercules just uses his own legend for marketing purposes and isn’t really the son of Zeus is a cool idea, but that’s really the only original idea here. Everything else is very paint by numbers and exactly what you’d expect. Every single twist (by which I mean two of them) are very obvious the instant you think about them.

In summation, this isn’t a great movie, but it’s fun enough. You can ignore the tiresome attempts at being serious and just appreciate The Rock yelling, smirking, and kicking ass. Oh, and you get to see him punch a horse. For some, that may just be worth the price of admission.

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Michael Bay is pretty much the quintessential director when it comes to action films. His name and his films are synonymous with fast cars, scantily clad exotic women, raunchy humor, slow motion shots and explosions. Lots and lots of explosions. So it was to my surprise when I heard Bay was tapped to helm and direct Pain & Gain, a movie based on the Sun Gym Gang’s kidnapping, extortion and murder spree that took place in Miami during the mid-nineties – a far cry from the Transformers film trilogy he just completed.

Thinking that Bay’s movie-making values and philosophy had reached a level of maturity after learning about the subject matter of his post-Transformers film I went into Pain & Gain expecting Bay to show me something new. Something fresh. Something I hadn’t seen from him before.

Well … let’s just say some things change and some things stay the same. Here’s the breakdown.

Without spoiling too much of the plot Pain & Gain stars Mark Wahlberg and Anthony Mackie as Daniel Lugo and Adrian Doorbal respectively, two body builders who work at Sun Gym in Miami. Lugo helps turn things around at the gym to compete against the rival Gold’s Gym but still finds himself stuck and in a rut and wanting more out of life. After crossing paths with very wealthy and belittling client Victor Kershaw (brilliantly played by Tony Shalhoub), Lugo hatches a scheme to kidnap, torture and extort him for his fortune. New Sun Gym recruit Paul Doyle (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) is brought into the fold to round out the scheme and the rest is history and for you to find out.

Pain & Gain sports a well-balanced cast that actually worked surprisingly well together on screen. I’m usually apprehensive about Mark Wahlberg who usually acts in one of two modes, either overly over-the-top and dramatic or overly over-the-top moronic, with little wiggle room for go-between. In this film however he was able to play a pumped up meat-head without a problem.

I will have to say however that The Rock’s performance in this film is probably what saved it for me. It was so different to see Johnson take on a role where he was a softy ex-con with a heart of gold. His comedic timing was great and he was ultimately the glue that held the film together in my opinion – which is probably why they marketed it so heavily with Johnson all over the posters even though his character doesn’t even show up until a third of the way through the film. Ed Harris’ and Rebel Wilson’s characters also stand out among the film’s cast and round out the rest of the key players in the film’s story.

Now I liked quite a bit about this film. But liking Pain & Gain for some of the reasons that you may find yourself liking it for is a double-edged sword – and therein lies where the moral dilemma comes in. But first I’ll start by mentioning what I liked about the movie.

One of the aspects of Pain & Gain that I found very satisfying was the point-of-view changes that were thrown into the film to tell a character’s side of the story and give the audience a look inside their world from their perspective. Side-stepping from the story briefly to look into the minds of the characters was jarring at first but you got used to it rather quickly and the clever usage of voice over, the believable acting and text layover effects really sold it.

Michael Bay also did a sly job of still making this film a typical Michael Bay movie which I found to be quite surprising given the nature of the film’s subject matter. The raunchy humor was still ever present along with the scantily clad exotic women, fast cars, slow motion effects and of course … an explosion. Coupled with the cast’s superb acting chemistry and The Rock’s stand-out performance, Bay was surprisingly able to deliver a crime-thrilling action-comedy that really brings it home. Yes, I said comedy.

Now here’s that moral question I kept referring to and what I didn’t like about the film. I went into this movie knowing it was based on true events involving kidnapping, torture and even a murder or two thrown in for good measure. I wasn’t sure that the tone Bay took with this film was the right one. Because Pain & Gain basically made out the Sun Gym Gang’s exploits out to be a joke. I was entertained and I laughed at things that I probably shouldn’t have been laughing about. Should I have enjoyed the hilarity and antics Bay portrayed onscreen? Even though people’s lives were affected by the actual events? Had this movie been purely fiction I wouldn’t have had this moral question looming over my head after seeing the film.

I recall probably the most signature moment in the film where the movie reached a point where the insanity of Pain & Gain actually had to be summed up with a subtitle that flashed onto the screen that read “This is still based on a true story.” And me along with the rest of the audience laughed. Pain & Gain was funny. But in actuality it probably was handled insensitively.

If you can look beyond the fact of the rather insensitive and tactless approach to portraying the subject matter, Pain & Gain can actually be an entertaining film. If you’re a fan of Michael Bay this film won’t disappoint, nor will it let you down if you’re a fan of Mark Wahlberg and especially The Rock. My only request is that you at least be mindful of the serious nature of this movie’s truthful origins.

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