Grade: B minus

Over the past 18 years, Dwayne Johnson has appeared in several dozen films but has been credited as “The Rock” only once (in the wrestling drama Fighting with My Family, where he played a lightly fictionalized version of himself). That he was able to drop his famous WWE moniker and still become one of the world’s most bankable movie stars—headlining a number of original hits (San Andreas, Central Intelligence), supercharging the Fast & Furious franchise, turning Jumanji into a global brand—is a testament to the impressiveness of his career transition; he’s come a long way since the brute who awkwardly lumbered across the screen in The Scorpion King. Yet while Johnson has proved his talents as an action hero and self-deprecating comedian (the latter quality best displayed in his vocal part in Moana, if maybe not its forgettable sequel), he’s rarely found work as a dramatic actor, possibly because his hulking size and booming voice prevented filmmakers from envisioning him as a regular person.

The Smashing Machine, the new biopic from Benny Safdie, represents an effort to change that. Not that Mark Kerr, Johnson’s role here, could fairly be dubbed a normal guy; he’s a muscle-bound giant, the kind of incredible hulk whose sheer mass draws stares in waiting rooms. But he isn’t a spy or a thief or superhero. He’s just an athlete, and his (relative) ordinariness seems designed to reshape Johnson’s image, and to lend his rippling physique a sheen of prestige credibility—the kind of artist who earns Oscars as well as dollars. Read More