With The Marine, John Cena follows in the footsteps of men like Hulk Hogan and Kane who looked upon themselves and said, "Hey, I'm a wrestling star...I should be doing movies!" However, I find it best to view this film as more of a grand social experiment than an actual movie. Call me crazy, but I think The Marine may have been designed as a test to see how many people would pony up cash for the same sort of movie they could watch at home on cable for free. Sadly, I am one of these poor souls.

Cena plays John Triton, a U.S. marine who finds himself faced with living a civilian life after being honorably discharged from service. Although "normal" life starts to bore him, John's still glad he can be with his beautiful wife Kate (Kelly Carlson). The happy couple decides to get out and enjoy the open air one weekend, but as it turns out, they would have been better off staying home.

A simple stop for gas has John crossing paths with homicidal jewel thief Rome (Robert Patrick) and his gang, who kidnap Kate and leave the ex-marine for dead in one of many gigantic explosions that will take place over the course of the film. Whatever the Marines are smoking, I'd like a little of it, because John not only survives but quickly transforms into a one-man fighting force, calling upon skills he learned in the service to track down his wife, rescue her, and lay the smackdown on Rome's crew in the process.

Hey, I have a message for The Marine: the late 1980s called, and they want their crummy action movie back.

The Marine tends to place characters in the middle of action set pieces so explosive they would kill Schwarzenegger, yet these people emerge relatively unscathed, which makes it come across more like a living cartoon than a feature film. I half expected an anvil to fall on Cena's head and turn him into an accordion, or to see one of the villains fight back with Acme products. 

This is one preposterous flick, even by action movie standards. Granted, some of the most plotless action movies can be fun because of elements like their stylishly furious set pieces (District B13) or subtle self-awareness about how goofy everything is (Commando). But The Marine boils its action down to simply blowing stuff up. Since that's really all the movie has to offer, I could've had more fun with a box of leftover fireworks.

The Marine sails past being a guilty pleasure and ends up making you feel guilty for wasting time watching it. It's laughable in all of the worst ways, from that very first image of Cena looking goofy as all get-out in his Marine uniform to the inexplicably bizarre banter between Rome and his thugs, meant to provide comic relief but ending up too bizarre and irrelevant. As a leading man, Cena's personality and acting chops render him the masculine equivalent of Jessica Simpson. Patrick surprised me with his boring villain turn here (after all, he played one of the greatest villains of all time in Terminator 2), and Carlson's presence is unmemorable. 

I never thought I'd find myself yearning to see Kane mow down twentysomethings again in See No Evil instead of watching an action flick, but The Marine made me realize there's actually been better movies starring wrestlers.

MY RATING: * (out of ****)

(Released by Twentieth Century Fox and rated "PG-13" for intense sequences of violent action, sensuality and language.)