The Marine 5: Battleground (2017) and The Marine Franchise in the Sunday "Bad" Movies

The Sunday “Bad” Movies have been going on for nearly 240 weeks, and it’s starting to feel like there truly is a history to the blog and the movies I’ve watched for it.  Take a look at the movie I watched for this week's post, The Marine 5: Battleground.  This action franchise produced by WWE has been a part of the blog since the first year.  When I was choosing movies to watch and write about in that first year (which was a little different than the way I do it now), I decided to check out the John Cena film and its two direct-to-video sequels.  I have since watched the fourth one when it came out in 2015, and the fifth installment which came out earlier this year.

There have been some other movies where I’ve watched a sequel in a post after I had watched a different installment in the franchise.  I’ve seen two of the Friday the 13^th movies for different posts, one in the first year and one in the second.  The same could be said for the Evil Bong movies, where I watched one at the end of the first year and one at the end of the second.  There was even a time when I watched Jack Frost one Christmas and watched Jack Frost 2 another Christmas.  But for some reason, The Marine has been my favourite franchise to return to.

The franchise began back in 2006 when WWE decided to push their big star, John Cena, into films.  He played a discharged marine who chased some diamond thieves who kidnapped his wife.  It wasn’t the strongest start.  The movie was a mess of two tones, a straight action movie and a comedy.  Neither of the tones fit well together, though they have in other movies.  It was as though the writers didn’t know how to blend the action and the comedy to make anything satisfying.  There were great moments within each, but they couldn’t come together.  John Cena also wasn’t great in it.  He has improved since then, appearing in many more movies and giving better performances.  His first feature film starring role, however, was not good.

If it hadn’t been for the Sunday “Bad” Movies, I probably would have stopped watching the series right then and there.  The first had left a sour enough taste in my mouth that I wouldn’t have wanted to continue the exploits of marines saving the day, as imagined by WWE.  It was the only theatrical outing in the entire franchise, so things would only go down from there, right?  The quality of the direct-to-video sequels would just be worse, right?

The Marine 2 was released in 2009 and had Ted DiBiase Jr. taking over the lead role.  He played a different character, this time a marine sniper who was on vacation when terrorists took over the resort he was staying at.  He was the only person not taken hostage and had to go Die Hard on the place in order to keep the hostages safe and take down the terrorists.  Gone was the comedic side of the first movie.  What was left was the most solid action outing of the entire franchise.  The direction by Roel Reiné highlighted the brute force that DiBiase’s wrestler body had, and didn’t try to go too far over the top with it.  The movie had explosions, but it felt more grounded and real than the first.  The punches had impact.  The kicks felt painful.  It worked.

Knowing how the sequel had improved upon the problems of the first with a better tone and grounded action, I was interested in seeing where the third installment would go.  The one thing that had been lacking was an interesting lead character.  John Cena and Ted DiBiase Jr. were believable as the tough marine types who would be hard to take down.  But their characters existed solely as an action hero saving his wife.  There was no real depth to the characters.  As a viewer, you didn’t know too much about them.  Well, I guess you did know a little bit about Cena thanks to the beginning scene where he was starting a new job as security in some building.  But you never felt like you got to know the character on any deep sort of level.

Mike ‘The Miz’ Mizanin took over the lead duties when The Marine 3: Homefront rolled around in 2013.  He came into the series for the first movie in which they gave a main character some real depth to his personality.  Jake Carter (Mizanin) was a marine who had recently returned home after his tour.  He had anger issues and was very protective of his family.  These anger issues made the character more than the white knights of the previous two installments.  He was flawed.  When his sister was kidnapped by an extremist terrorist, Jake did whatever he could to save her.

In terms of the overall series, the third instalment provided the best story with the best character work.  The main character was no longer a flawless hero able to do whatever he wanted to save people.  He had anger problems that would cause him to do things differently.  The FBI was involved to the point of trying to keep Jake from saving his sister.  Not because they wanted the sister to not be saved.  They simply didn’t want Jake risking his own life.  It felt like more than the simple action movies that the franchise was known for, and still remains the best overall writing of any of The Marine movies.

The third movie ended my original watch of the franchise.  It was a triple feature that I wouldn’t soon forget.  And that’s where I thought the series was going to end.  It was a three and done thing, kind of like the Jason Statham Death Race series.  I would be pleasantly surprised in 2015 when The Marine 4: Moving Target was released, again starring Mike Mizanin.  Though the movie wasn’t nearly as good as the second or third outings, I was still happy to have a new movie in The Marine saga.

The Marine 4: Moving Target was the first time that a lead actor and character returned to the franchise.  Jake Carter was back, though this time, he was working in private security.  He was protecting a whistle-blower while the company she worked for sent mercenaries to kill her.  It was a fairly simple story that took place mostly in the woods.

That might have been the biggest issue with The Marine 4: Moving Target.  Having the action take place primarily in the woods didn’t give a lot of variety to what happened.  Everything looked the same, and the location was tired.  So many movies, particularly low budget movies, use forests and wooded areas as the backdrop because of how cheap and easy it is to film there.  The abandoned boat setting of much of the third movie’s action felt a little fresher.  The second movie was all about sneaking around a resort, which gave a variety to the locations.  And the first movie involved a lot of travel through a lot of different locations including rivers, woods, a jewelry shop, and a factory/boatyard thing at the end.  The primarily wooded location of the fourth felt boring compared to the other movies.

One thing that The Marine 4: Moving Target did bring to the series was a wider cast of wrestlers.  It wasn’t too much wider, but it was the first time that a Diva was in a WWE movie.  Summer Rae played one of the mercenaries sent out to kill the whistle blower.  There’s not much to say about her performance.  There was some physicality to it, but that was about it.

The Marine 5: Battleground, this week’s Sunday “Bad” Movie, expanded on the WWE casting by having about half of the major characters being played by wrestlers.  The 2017 release featured Mike Mizanin returning for his third time as Jake Carter.  He was now working as an EMT.  During one of his shifts, he and his partner were called to a heart attack report at the parking garage of an amusement park closed for the season.  When they arrived, they realized that it wasn’t a routine heart attack.  Instead, they were helping a man with a gunshot wound escape from a biker gang.

One of the more notable wrestlers that had a role in The Marine 5: Battleground was Mike Mizanin’s wife, Maryse Ouellet.  She didn’t have a large role.  She was a woman who Jake Carter saved from a trapped car early in the movie.  Other wrestlers with larger roles, as members of the biker gang, included Heath Slater, Curtis Axel, Bo Dallas, and Naomi.  This led to some solid fights, with choreography inspired by the wrestling backgrounds of the actors.  Bo Dallas, whose real name is Taylor Rotunda, had the biggest role of any of the wrestling newcomers.  He played the primary bad guy.  He wasn’t the leader of the biker gang, but the one that went after Jake Carter first, and the last to be taken down.  His performance was entertaining.  There was an animalistic menace to his biker gang member that made for a captivating battle between him and Jake Carter.  The performance that Dallas gave was reminiscent of David Patrick Kelly’s performance in The Warriors.  He had the same mixture of tough guy and whininess that made him stand out among the other standard gang members.

The fifth instalment of The Marine franchise was a major comeback after the disappointment of the previous outing.  The parking garage setting of the majority of the movie didn’t give a huge variety in visuals, but at least provided a sense of where the characters were in relation to everything else.  It’s also a location that isn’t so overused.  It felt semi-fresh.  The action didn’t stay there the entire time, either.  It moved out into the amusement park and eventually into a building that was under construction.  There was never time to get tired of the settings before being given some new visuals.  It didn’t hurt that they were trapped in the parking garage, unlike in number four where they weren’t trapped in the woods (they were just being chased through them).  It gave a different angle that helped give a better feel to what was going on.

Some of the stuff I’ve written might have sounded like gibberish.  I may have covered some points more than once and rambled on longer than was necessary.  The thing is, I’ve enjoyed The Marine franchise more than not.  Three of the movies have been highly entertaining and among my favourite action movies of the past decade.  They don’t try to go so far over the top that everything looks fake.  They also aren’t too far grounded that it feels too real.  The movies have found a spot in a heightened reality that makes the action have a realistic impact while also featuring some spectacle.  I’m looking forward to any future movies made in the franchise.

The Marine series has come a long way since it began.  After a mess of tones, the franchise stripped the comedy out to leave some entertaining action.  They have only kept going since then, adding some story elements, while also utilizing other wrestlers to keep the action interesting and somewhat unique.  There aren’t a whole lot of action movies that do what The Marine movies do so well.  That’s why I’ll be waiting for the sixth movie.  And when it comes, I’ll be sure to add it to my lineup.

Let’s leave off on a few notes:

• Here’s the post for the first three movies in The Marine franchise.  Here’s the post for the fourth.  Here’s the post for the Death Race movies.
• I mentioned Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, Jason Goes to Hell, Evil Bong, Evil Bong 2: King Bong, Jack Frost, and Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman.
• As I already said in the post, Mike Mizanin was in The Marine 3: Homefront, The Marine 4: Moving Target, and The Marine 5: Battleground.
• Charles Andre appeared in The Marine 5: Battleground.  He can also be seen in Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.
• Finally, The Marine 5: Battleground featured Mark Acheson from the movie Alone in the Dark.
• Have you seen any of The Marine movies?  What did you think of them?  Let me know in the comments.
• You can also use the comments to let me know about any movies that you want to suggest.  I’m always up for hearing about movies that I might not have considered including in the Sunday “Bad” Movies.  Another place to find me for suggestions is on Twitter.  Hit me up.
• Sometimes when I’m watching bad movies, I share clips of them on snapchat.  Add me (jurassicgriffin) if you want to see movie clips, movie lists, the piece of wood I have at work (his name is Clarence), or other weird things.
• Next week is a week where I’m going to be seeing another music movie.  It’s about four sisters who end up in a band.  Jem and the Holograms will be coming up in seven days.  You’ll see what I have to say about it then, so I hope you’ll join me here for that post.  See you next time.