WWE studios new action film and wrestling star hybrid, The Marine 2 has released and fans of either of the above will be happy with the results here. The Marine 2 is a mindless, bullet riddled action movie with a lot of flaws, but those that like their movies short on plot and heavy on action will find a lot to love here.
The Marine 2 begins with Joe Linwood (Ted DiBiase Jr) on a Mission that completes successfully, but leaves him questioning the collateral damage he’s causing with his career as a marine. Looking for some much needed R & R he takes some leave and meets his wife Robin (Lara Cox) on the island of where she is representing her boss Conner (Robert Coleby) as he opens a resort there. Looking to take back the island and make a shit load of money from ransoming the hostages is Damo, (Temuera Morrison) who stages a siege on the island. Infiltration of the resort by a group of mercenaries goes sour when a traitor sells them out and Joe is left to save everyone inside. Aided by Church (Michael Rooker) he infiltrates the resort and whoops a lot of ass to save his wife and all the hostages.
Highlights
The Marine 2 is not one of those films thats going to stand out. It’s a straight to Blu-ray/DVD release that has only a few Hollywood names worth remembering, contains many easy to catch errors, and has some laughably bad dialogue throughout. Lara Cox and Robert Coleby’s characters provide most of the poor dialogue and hearing everyone refer to Joe as the marine over and over and over wore down my patience. What the film does offer is some pretty decent action sequences similar to what's found in movies like Commando and the Rambo series. The huge fight scene with Joe against two of the terrorists at once stands out. Ted fights them as you would expect an American wrestler of his size to fight. He can’t match the speed of the smaller Thai fighters, but when he gets his hands on them, he opens up a can of whoop ass and its pretty fun to watch.
Special Features
The Marine 2 comes standard as a single Blu-ray disc collection containing the feature film presented in widescreen with 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio. Special features included are some forced trailers, Commentary with director Roel Reine and Ted DiBiase, extended deleted scenes montage, and three behind the scenes featurettes: Village Virtuoso, The Last Resort, and Building a Legacy. There are two extended scenes showing more of the couple arriving on the island and meeting Church for the first time. There are also only two deleted scenes, but like the extended ones, they don’t really add any more to the film and you won’t miss them being cut. The montage throws a bunch of small clips together a few seconds long that were cut from the film.
The Muay Thai Fight Outtakes are the unfinished takes from the main fight scene and all vary in length. This is certainly worth watching because that fight scene is the best part of the entire film. The behind the scenes featurettes are the best part of all the special features and run about 25 minutes in length combined. There are six in all and some of them could have been added to the others because they cover similar topics. The Thai fight scene featurette is by far the best of the lot. It describes how Ted and the stuntmen wrecked each other during the largest fight scene of the movie. The Ted’s Story featurette is also watch-worthy and wrestling fans will like seeing his original audition as well as the quotes from his father on why his son became a wrestler.
Overview
The Marine 2 reminds me of a summer blockbuster movie. There’s a lot of style and action here but not a lot of substance. Its plot is extremely loose and provides barely the setup to get Ted DiBiase Jr. to fight a bunch of bad guys. Many of the supporting characters are terrible and will have you laughing when you shouldn’t be. The fighting (which is really the best part) will make fans of similar films as well as Ted’s wrestling career extremely happy. The special features are great and seeing Ted perform his own stunts will impress you.
ComicsOnline gives The Marine 2 three out of five cans of whoop ass.
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