The Rundown [HD DVD] [2004] [US Import]

John is Beck, a "retrieval specialist", sent by his boss to the Brazilian Amazon jungle to recover his errant son, Travis (Seann William Scott). Trouble is, Travis doesn't want to leave - he's too busy tracking down an artifact of native treasure, a solid gold statue hidden in the jungle. This trinket thrusts Beck and Travis between battling armed nationalists, led by bar-owner Mariana (Rosario Dawson), and the stereotypic Evil White Man, Hatcher (Christopher Walken), whose empire is an enormous open-pit gold mining operation worked by downtrodden locals kept in line by whip-wielding thugs.

To my mind, THE RUNDOWN is saved by the likeable Beck and a strong performance by Walken. Otherwise, it's just a series of confrontations, mostly kung-fu action sequences, with a gun battle and a vehicle chase thrown in for variety. Mariana simply serves as eye-candy.

Is The Rock destined to be the next generation Tough Guy action hero? Perhaps. In a blink-of-an-eye cameo at the beginning of the film, Arnold Schwarzenegger passes Beck on the way out of a nightclub and says" Have fun!' Arnie is off to be Governor of California, leaving the heavy lifting to his successor.

This isn't a bad movie, and is an entertaining introduction to The Rock as a leading man of the genre. I just hope the plots of his future releases are a little more focused and, um (dare I say), intelligent. Also, THE RUNDOWN ends with the impression that Beck and Travis will continue on as a team. Oh, I hope not since the latter is one of the more clownish and irritating characters I've seen on the Big Screen lately. There's not the chemistry between the two as between Gibson and Glover (of the LETHAL WEAPON series), or Wilson and Chan (of the SHANGHAI series), or Smith and Jones (of the MEN IN BLACK series).

Welcome To The Jungle is a fun "brain-off" movie that delivers action, adventure, one-liners and some impressive stunts. Adding the anti-gun storyline was a smart move as it benefitted the fight scenes as well as hyped up the inevitable showdown at the end. At 1hr 40mins this movie could have done with an extra 15mins or so to give some of the characters a fraction more depth. Christopher Walken takes on the "bad guy" role, although sadly isn't given much time to make the audience really dislike him. His exit from the movie is a classic overacted-badguy-death-sequence and Walken performed it perfectly. Seann William Scott played well against the Rock although I was left wondering whether it would have worked better with a "tougher" comedy actor instead (still can't watch him seriously after all the Pie/Dude movies). With a good supporting cast (although exactly WHICH accent was the pilot trying to do?) the film deserves all the credit it has received. For the legions of "WWE" Rock fans there are a few nice touches, most of which I'll leave for them to find, except to mention that Rock manages to work a "Rock Bottom" into one of the fight sequences.

So onwards and upwards for The Rock. This movie was a smart choice for him and I'd guess most people who like this movie will go and watch him again (Walking Tall, Scorpion King). Lets hope he soon ditches the "Rock" alias and starts appearing as Dwayne Johnson so we can stop seeing Vince McMahon on the closing credits as "Executive Producer" - I doubt the guy ever appeared on set at all.