Legendary - Movie No. 12

Legendary

Director: Mel Damski

Starring: John Cena, Patricia Clarkson and Danny Glover

Year: 2010

Watched: 9/1/11

What the fudge is it.....

Big John Cena is a bad bad man (yes thats a reference to his album). He used to be a wrestling champ with hopes and dreams now he just has sex with skanky women and lives in a trailer. Meanwhile his genetically opposite younger brother wants to take up wrestling.....will his estranged older brother help the little weed and maybe, just maybe form a relationship. Danny Glover fishes while this all goes down.

What I thought...

Im a massive wrestling fan and i think anyone who knows me is well aware of this disability. First off i know that no wrestler will win an Oscar and i know that wrestling is "fake". i can accept the no Oscars for HHH and stone cold but the fake one does annoy me sometimes. People almost say it as if it is some massive revolation! Like they being far more educated than me have stumbled across this fantastic nugget of knowledge. i mean are they saying that the undertaker hasnt come back from the dead around 12 times? Did triple h really not break into randy ortons house and kick the shit into him? Is vince Mc mahon really not in a coma?

Wrestling is scripted just like every other TV show. i never walk up to someone and say "you know east enders is fake!". To do so would be retarded. Think of the amount of ground breaking announcements i could make. The island on lost is made up. The dream in Dallas was all bullshit. Tony soprano isnt a real gangster. The thing i like about wrestling is when it is done properly it is story telling, instead of props and dialogue the crazy fools use their bodies. The bumps hurt and the amount of abuse they guys take is unbelievable. To call it fake would imply that the wrestlers were CGI. Naaaaa that guy did just fall off a ladder onto a table.

So next time you feel like telling someone wrestling is fake just think for a second and realize your being a tool bag. Better yet get in a ring and take a few bumps and see how fake it feels. Its by no means the best acted or most classy form of entertainment but to each their own.....if you dont like it i'll sweet chin ya.

I forgot about the film....

The film does feel like a TV movie the whole way through. This is mainly down to the lighting and production but it also has one of those stories. Those honky stories that my mother (Mrs McGrory to all you) enjoys watching on the hallmark channel.

Cena is hard to take as a darker character this is probably because most of the time i see him he is being cheesy and lifting big sweaty men over his head. He does show that he can get by in the acting department. The man will never win the Oscar but he is decent enough for someone the width of a bus with a neck like a tree trunk. if you look at the Marine to this is obvious he is learning something! Lets face it WWE can churn out action film stars aka Big bastard who can say lines and i am sticking by the condemned it was a good film!

(Who needs to act like Marlon Brando when you have bling like that)

Devon Graye plays Cal. A young dude who is around 6 stone ringing wet. His brother was a wrestler and his father was a wrestler and now he......plays with catfish! But not for long as he soon realises that rolling around a mat with sweaty dudes is much more fun. The relationship between Cal, his mother and Big John Cena is a difficult one. Cal hopes that through the wonder of jock straps and grappling they can all just get along.

The scenes with Cena and Graye are really good there is a definite chemistry there and we see Cena become more likeably as the film goes along. The training scenes are done well with the usual beauty of a montage (even rocky had a montage). The one big area that really let me down was the wrestling matches. Raging bull made Jake feel alone, Rocky made us feel every punch and the fighter gave that real PPV feel. Legendary as a wrestling film fails to make the wrestling the best bit! Its crazy to think that a film about wrestling with a massive pro wresling star would drop the ball on something so important but it does. The matches feel too fast and its almost as if the film makers assume everyone has a great knowledge of mat wrestling.

Danny Glover! Seriously he is int he film! Not for long but he is in there.....his character is terrible with a pathetic set up. Never explored and i actually forgot that the man who was too old for that shit was still in the film. I literally thought he got too old for that shit and died during shooting. In the last reel we see glover and there is a great reveal as to why the character is so important. Balls to that and for the second time in my life im saying i was disappointed in Danny Glover (predator 2 was the first)

Overall

Not as bad as watching promos on TNA. Cena is beginning to act a little which is nice to see. The wrestling is never shown as well as it could have been. Very hallmark and totally a TV movie but the big wrestling fan inside me enjoyed watching Cena teach a young skinny pup how to grapple men (wow that sounds wrong).

2/5