In the latest Substandard, JVL, Vic, and I discuss the National Zoo, watch porn*, and the parlous state of the film franchise scene as represented by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales and Baywatch: We Think Corpse Dicks Are Funny AF**. Listen below! Subscribe/leave a review here. Every time you leave a review, Jonah Goldberg gets three percent sadder, so make sure to harsh his buzz just a bit. After the jump, we consider the curious case of Dwayne Johnson, the most likable actor in America with some of the worst taste in movie choices.
Let's set aside the whole "Rock for Prez" thing, suggested in the Washington Post by my friend Alyssa Rosenberg before being mused over on the covers of GQ and National Review. The idea is kind of silly but makes a certain amount of sense: Dwayne Johnson is charismatic as hell, well spoken, and has high-name-recognition. Given our current situation, the idea of The Rock in the Oval Office isn't so far fetched, really.
What I find more interesting is the fact that The Rock manages to maintain his popularity despite having—well, let's say, questionable taste in projects. I mean, fine, you apes love the Fast and Furious movies even though they're terrible, whatever. (And, to be fair, the first entry in the series with Johnson is by far the best.) But Ballers is borderline unwatchable, San Andreas was remarkably annoying even by disaster movie standards, Baywatch is an unfunny, tonally mixed mess of a movie, Hercules was ... well, it was fine, but nothing special, Snitch and Faster are basically interchangeable in my memory, and The Tooth Fairy was a high-concept comedy that felt forced, as if he decided he needed to make his Kindergarten Cop movie 10 years too early.
I don't like being this critical of Johnson, who, again, is among the most entertaining, charismatic people on the planet. He's genuinely funny, with an expressive face and the best eyebrows since Belushi. Johnson has undeniable star presence, a fact that translates onscreen even when he's working with shoddy material but really shines through when he's working with something above average (see: The Rundown). And he's an underrated actor! His twitchy GOP operative in Southland Tales is a fun turn in a strange movie, and he's pretty much the only memorable thing about Be Cool. (Update: I forgot to mention this, but Johnson's also fantastic in Pain & Gain, Michael Bay's criminally underrated tale of criminally stupid criminals that also happens to be the best film about America's status as an unfocused hyperpower in the 1990s. /Update.)
All of which makes his choices in projects so frustrating. Look, I get being in the billion-dollar Fast and Furious flicks. I'm sure they pay well, open up doors, etc. People like those dumb movies for some reason. But Baywatch? And the upcoming Jumanji reboot? And ... well, shit, just about everything on this list except for Shazam/Black Adam:
I dunno man. Maybe some of those will be good, but I don't have high hopes. It's just a series of reboots and sequels and properties filled with pre-awareness that are almost certainly based on sure-to-be-terrible scripts.
Anyway, The Rock is not overrated. The Rock is great. I just wish The Rock would be in a few great movies.
*Note: We "discuss ... watch porn," that is, talk about the extravagant devices people with too much money wear on their wrists because they're too good to just check their phones like a normal human being. We don't "watch porn" on the show. We're not savages.