Editor’s note: This post comes courtesy of an old colleague from our early days blogging the cineweb. Dan Stephens is the founder and editor of Top 10 Films, one of the UK’s longest-running movie sites. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has solidified his place as one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars, with a career spanning blockbuster action, heartfelt dramas, and laugh-out-loud comedies. His films have become synonymous with larger-than-life characters, edge-of-your-seat action, and a dose of irresistible charm. Whether he’s playing a heroic federal agent in Fast Five, a jungle-hopping adventurer in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, or an ancient anti-hero in Black Adam, Johnson possesses a magnetic screen presence and…
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G-S-T Review…Pain & Gain
What does Michael Bay unhinged look like on celluloid? That’s not a question most of us really need answered; eighteen years spent making glossy, lunkheaded action films, blockbusters based on toy lines, and useless horror remakes speak volumes on the subject of Bay’s auteurdom. But maybe the Transformers mastermind has been done an injustice. Maybe, beneath the frat boy wit and visual chaos of his cinema, Bay has kept his one Big Idea squirreled away for safekeeping, waiting for the right opportunity to unleash his unspoiled artistic vision on his audiences. Or maybe Pain & Gain is just an erroneous high water mark in bad taste filmmaking. Whatever the case may be,…