And the procession of WWE-produced made-for-home video action films continues with The Marine 4: Moving Target. It’s pretty much what you expect once the basic plot is set up: it’s the millionth variation of “The Most Dangerous Game” with some Terminator thrown in for good measure. For action fans, it’s an adequate display of firepower and civilian combat maneuvers, but that’s basically all that it is with characterization and plotting coming up painfully short.
Studio: Fox
Distributed By: N/A
Video Resolution and Encode: 1080P/AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audio: English 5.1 DTS-HDMA, French 5.1 DTS
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
Rating: R
Run Time: 1 Hr. 30 Min.
Package Includes: Blu-ray
keep caseDisc Type: BD50 (dual layer)
Region: A
Release Date: 04/21/2015
MSRP: $29.99
The Production Rating: 2.5/5
The script by Alan B. McElroy features cookie cutter conflict at every turn: Olivia naturally resists all attempts to help her, disregards orders that could save her life, and twice turns on Jake almost costing him his life. There are three major action set pieces that involve immense firepower, a tremendous amount of visceral carnage, and fairly predictable results: the people on the side of the heroes get wiped out utterly while the bad guys lose a team member here or there but manage to retain a large number of villains stalking their prey into the climax: an overextended deep forest cat and mouse hunt that is a poor man’s Rambo in terms of the unimaginative booby traps Jake constructs to take out the opposing team. To the filmmakers’ credit, time has obviously been taken choreographing the hand-to-hand combat scenes which dot the movie (much more interesting than the interminable wide spray of machine gun fire that most of the movie features), and whether Mike Mizanin is fighting one of the nameless thugs, his WWE colleague Summer Rae playing the only female member of this tough private military unit, or Josh Blacker’s strong and heartless Andrew Vogel, the blows look powerful and lethal. (Of course, this movie like so many other action films today also minimizes the damage slamming someone through a table or smashing a glass pitcher over his head would have; these moves don’t even produce bruises much less substantial loss of blood or broken bones: a silly, sad cliché of the genre).
Mike 'The Miz' Mizanin (he’s billed with his WWE Superstar name intact) is reprising the role of Jake Carter that he played in The Marine 3, and after years on television and in big arenas around the world, he’s perfectly at ease and natural before the camera, and his physicality does make him tailor-made for this kind of action filmmaking. Melissa Roxburgh’s Olivia Tanis does undergo some growth during the film beginning as a petulant, mistrustful brat who's very hard to like and eventually managing to hold her own when things get really bad. Josh Blacker and Matthew MacCaull as the two major villains of the piece are both certainly one-note characters, but they both revel in their treachery and make most entertaining monsters. Summer Rae holds her own physically though her character is mostly a cipher, simply a female killing machine.
Video Rating: 4.5/5 3D Rating: NA
Audio Rating: 4.5/5
Special Features Rating: 2.5/5
The Franchise (5:48, HD): brief clips from the previous entries in the series starring John Cena and Ted Debiase are shown before Mike Mizanin expresses his hope that his training and attention to detail will do the Marine Corps.proud.
Beauty Is Dangerous (4:14, HD): the film’s two female leads Melissa Roxburgh and Summer Rae talk about their interest in portraying strong female characters in the film. Mike Mizanin also comments on their work ethic to blend in seamlessly with their male counterparts.
Promo Trailers (HD): Taken 3, Bad Asses on the Bayou, Kingsman: The Secret Service, among others.
Overall Rating: 2.5/5
Reviewed By: Matt Hough
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