The Marine 6: Close Quarters

Season’s greetings dear readers! One of my gifts for you this holiday season is my latest entry for WWE Studios’ sixth installment in their flagship franchise, The Marine! It hit direct-to-video this past month so this is a rare timely review from me! I had The Marine 6: Close Quarters (trailer) on pre-order from Amazon, but for whatever reason it took Amazon an extra two weeks to ship it to me after its street date. I hear more and more studios are doing this intentionally by delaying shipments to Amazon so brick-and-mortar retailers can compete. Just a heads up I will dive into some major spoilers that is imperative I address in the final paragraphs here, but I will make sure to give you a big, bold-faced warning so you know when they are about to hit.

The Marine films have been guilty pleasures for me. Like I have stated in my previous Marine entries, they are a throwback to the low budget action films that would dominate the TBS night with the theme, Movies for Guys Who Like Movies. Marine 6 continues that trend with a film that primarily takes place in one location with a limited cast, and as far as action films are concerned, a smaller scale for gunfights, in-your-face action and blockbuster explosions. What they lack in the AAA budget department, they make up for with the primary cast consisting of WWE wrestlers.

Unlike the previous film which was supported with lower-tiered WWE wrestlers, this film features top WWE talent. Mike “The Miz” Mizanin returns in the starring role as ex-marine, Jake Carter. He starts the film sparring with his former comrade, Luke Trapper (Shawn Michaels). Carter helps Trapper in his VA work where he delivers food to vets having a rough after-life as squatters in an abandoned building. It is there where the duo stumbles into the Hayes gang who have kidnapped Sarah Dillon (Louisa Burnham), the daughter of a juror who is deliberating the verdict of the head of the Hayes gang. The marines manage to wrestle Sarah away from the gang, but Hayes’ daughter, Maddy (Becky Lynch) leads her goons in a full-on attack against the former marines in the abandoned building complex.

What transpires is a game of cat-and-mouse as Sarah, Luke and Jake try and stay one step ahead of the Hayes gang, with many close encounters with intervening thugs they bump into that results with plenty of intense brawls and trading of fire. I liked how creative the producers got with keeping the chase interesting with the small rooms, vents and tunnels the trio found themselves in as they worked their way out of the complex. The sense of action had me glued in whenever a fight occurred, and was complemented nicely with a up-tempo score to keep me fully immersed much like a 80s action B-movie would.

Mizanin is serviceable once again in the leading role, and Michaels was surprisingly solid with his limited acting experience too. Mizanin and Michaels have a few hammed up quips they exchange throughout the film that should flop-by-all means, but their earnest delivery of them surprisingly worked for me in a adorably hammy sort of way. I would be remiss if I failed to mention the outstanding performance of one Becky Lynch. For readers here who do not follow pro-wrestling, Becky is absolutely killing it in current WWE television portraying a female badass ala “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and it is generating main event fandom among the WWE fans in a fervor the WWE has not seen in years. Becky portrays that same take-no-BS attitude in Close Quarters, and I can see it being the catalyst for how she transferred her Maddy persona onto her WWE character months after wrapping production. She is awesome in the film and successfully comes off as a believable badass I would dare not mess with.

As has been the tradition for most WWE Studios home videos, Marine 6 contains only two short extra features. Making Maddy & Marines interviews Michaels and Miz about their on screen chemistry and Becky giving props to Miz for teaching her acting fundamentals. Breakdown: Epic Fights interviews the WWE stars and the fight choreographer about how tough training was for the fight scenes and breaks down the epic final fight scene. They are nice short extras…..but c’mon WWE shell out a few bucks and give me a director and actors roundtable audio commentary track!! Speaking of short, The Marine 6 is a fun, brisk watch at 85 minutes and wraps up before you know it. That is three hits in a row for director James Nunn, whose work on Eliminators, Marine 5 & 6 I would place among the best of the WWE Studios library!

SPOILERS!!!!

Ok guys, I have to chime in with my two cents concerning the surprising moment in Close Quarters when they kill off Jake Carter!!!! I have to admit I did not see it coming and it is not that often you see a long running film franchise kill off its headlining character. The Miz takes a couple of shots to the stomach, but I kept thinking ‘he is going to shake it off’ but instead winds up worse for wear until he meets his shocking demise. This is not a comic-book film questionable death scene either because they definitively kill off Carter and make sure to show his lifeless corpse in a body bag in the film’s final moments when Luke pays him his respects. Props to filmmakers for giving a nice little ‘best of Carter’ montage during the credits, but it is kind of shoddily thrown together with a generic song and does not hold a candle to the tremendous send-off tribute to Paul Walker in Furious 7. I do not foresee the WWE stop making future Marine movies, so I am guessing this was WWE ‘passing the torch’ to Shawn Michaels to take the helm as the lead role in future installments in WWE Studios’ signature franchise.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed
Deck the Halls
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Indiana Jones 1-4
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Marine 3-6
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mortal Kombat
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past

The Marine 5: Battlegrounds & The Interrogation

A couple years ago I enjoyed myself so much with a two-for-one review special of the latest DVDs from WWE Studios that I decided it was the proper time to bring that feature back. Today I am covering last year’s Interrogation (trailer). It is a crime thriller featuring Edge in the lead role as a FBI interrogator where he is involved in a cat and mouse game with a suspect dangling multiple bomb threats in front of him. Marine 5: Battlegrounds (trailer) hit earlier this year and features an ensemble cast of WWE stars with the Miz once again reprising his lead role as an ex-Marine trying to live a normal life, but finds himself mixed up in a gang war at a amusement park.

WWE has been pumping out what seems like several movies a year now. WWE is all in on the direct-to-video movie train because it appears they are content with their low budget films making a small enough profit due to filming them in Vancouver where they get considerable tax breaks. I use to rent their films from Netflix just to see what they would unleash upon movie fans next, but WWE put the kibosh on Netflix rentals from their last several films, so now I am forced to purchase their movies and thus they enter my backlog which means you all get to suffer/experience them with me in the form of my review.

Marine 5 captures the same raw, gritty feel of most WWE Studios’ action films that serve as a prime selection for Movies for Guys Who Like Movies night on TBS. The Miz is once again Jake Carter, after failing his last job as a personal security detail in Marine 4, Carter takes up the role of an innocent, everyday EMT. Things go horribly awry his first day on the job however when him and his partner Zoe (Anna Van Hooft) get mixed up in a gang war with biker gang, The Lost Legion. Miz must protect Lost Legion target Cole (Nathan Mitchell) from gangsters comprising of WWE stars Naomi, Heath Slater, Curtis Axel and Bo Dallas.

A bulk of Marine 5 is Jake, Zoe and Cole trying to stay one step ahead of the biker gang in a parking garage. After playing hide and seek from the gang in the garage for awhile, the final act takes place in a big final showdown at an amusement park. Once I got over the hoki-ness of the bulk of the WWE stars involved, I was surprised to find myself legit getting into Battlegrounds. I got into Carter and friends combining their wits to fend off the Lost Legion and the final act amps up in a big chase throughout the city until a big showdown between Miz and Bo’s characters. This is Miz’s third time in the lead role of this franchise and he actually developed some marginal acting chops by this point and manages to carry the lead role well enough for this type of low budget action film. Bo Dallas was also a pleasant surprise as the most prominent Lost Legion member throughout the film and proves to be a viable head villain by the end of the movie. As for Curtis Axel, Heath Slater and Naomi…well they gave it a good effort for it being their first film!

The Interrogation is a little more complex and not your by-the-numbers action film. It reminded me a lot of Die Hard: With a Vengeance, just not as good. It starts off with the film’s antagonist, Vasti (Patrick Sabongui) bombing an office building and immediately turning himself in. He is questioned by pro-FBI interrogator Lucas Nolan (Edge). Oh yeah, WWE star Lana is in this film too in a minor role as part of the anti-terror team that assists Lucas throughout the film. I never got use to her in here because it is befuddling seeing Lana without her trademark Russian accent she is notorious for on WWE programming. Vasti wants to play mind games with Lucas though and quotes literature and uses other subtle tells to clue Lucas in on his next several targets that he has rigged up to explode. The film makes use of a “memory house” technique where Lucas goes into deep thought to piece together Vasti’s clues that is fun to play along with.

If you are into these sorts of mystery-thrillers that invite the audience to solve the mystery along with the hero, than The Interrogation may be up your alley (for the record, The Prestige is my favorite type of these films). I am awful at putting clues and hints together in these sorts of mind-benders, so I sat back and enjoyed the ride where Lucas and his anti-terror team were constantly on the move attempting to stop the next bomb to mixed results. I did not see the big twist coming as it took me by surprise, and I thought the filmmakers did a good job at justifying how it all played out. The Interrogation appears to have a little more of a production budget compared to the average WWE film as it implements more dynamic city-wide shots and far more intense action scenes than what I am use to from WWE Studios. Edge is OK as Lucas, and I think he gave this serious role his best shot, but I am so use to seeing him as a more lighthearted character in both his WWE and non-WWE roles.

Both Interrogation and Marine 5 follow the same blueprint for their meager sampling of extra features. Both BluRays have two short behind-the-scenes features around four-to-five minutes long each. I dug how Interrogation broke down how it pulled off its impressive explosions with their DIY approach. Marine 5’s extras were entertaining as it was mostly the WWE stars being thrilled and about making their acting debuts and loving the spooky amusement park setting. I would have loved for all six WWE stars to sit down with the director of Marine 5 for the ultimate commentary track, but alas it was not to be.

I know this is faint praise, but Marine 5: Battlegrounds is easily my favorite of the five. Set aside the fact it is The Miz with an ensemble cast of opening act WWE stars, and there is a fun tale of an EMT taking on an army of biker thugs to be had. It is a prime popcorn action movie to enjoy with your loved one! As for Interrogation, well I as I stated earlier it is a poor man’s Die Hard 3, and I just happened to have seen that Die Hard just a few months ago and The Interrogation simply does not measure up, but it does have a couple of good moments and shows a few glimpses of being an entertaining mind-bender throughout, but not enough to warrant a viewing. Stick with Die Hard 3 and/or The Prestige instead!

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Creed
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Ink
Interstellar
Jobs
Man of Steel
Marine 3-5
Mortal Kombat
The Replacements
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
The War
Wild
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past

The Marine 3: Homefront & The Marine 4: Moving Target

Today I am bringing back the classic mid to late 90s TBS Thursday night special, Movies for Guys Who Like Movies. I have too many memories of watching the latest, awful episode of WCW Thunder, only to see commercials throughout it for the night’s Movies for Guys Who Like Movies selection that would immediately follow it, which was usually for some awesome campy action flick from the 80s featuring a member of The Expendables as the lead. It was a great way to wind down the night and enjoy a nonsensical action film and simply take in a barrage of bullets and explosions as I nodded off to sleep.

I am covering a pair of newer action films that are a throwback to that era, but are nowhere near as legendary. The masterminds at WWE Studios just released The Marine 4: Moving Target (trailer) last week. I have seen the first two Marine films starring John Cena and Ted Dibiase Jr. as the lead, but never got around to seeing the third installment titled, The Marine 3: Homefront (trailer). So I spent this past weekend indulging in the latest two Marine films and made sure to throw on my mindless 80s action film goggles on top of it for good measure.

The latest WWE wrestler taking the lead marine role in both of these films is former world champion and reality television star, Mike “The Miz” Mizannin. In Homefront, The Miz portrays Sgt. Jake Carter, who is on leave in his small hometown of Bridgeton when he finds himself stumbling into the middle of a messy situation. Carter’s sister, Lily (Ashley Bell) and her boyfriend Darren (Jeffrey Ballard) witness a murder at the hands of a terrorist group head up by one Jonah Pope (Neal McDonough) and are quickly taken hostage. Word gets out to Carter and he rushes in with many obstacles blocking his way to save the day in vintage 80s action film fashion.

In Moving Target, the trail of destruction that Carter left behind presumably lead to his discharge as he is now working private security. He has a less than desired first day on the job, when the security team he is part of is ambushed by a group of mercenaries headed up by a man going by Vogel (Josh Blacker). Homefront is also the first WWE Studios film to feature one of their Divas in a film, with Sumer Rae being one of the mercenaries chasing down Carter throughout the film. The mercenaries are after who Carter is sworn to protect, one Ms. Olivia Tanis (Melissa Roxburgh). The mercenaries are constantly one step behind Carter & Tanis until, wait for it, the hunters become the hunted.

Both Marine films are among the low budget, direct to video fare. WWE Studios has been making films like this for awhile now and somehow found a way to be profitable at it and thus they continue to pump their films into the marketplace. Scott Wiper makes his return to directing for WWE Studios with Homefront, which I do not mind since The Condemned is probably my favorite WWE produced film (yes, I have seen them all, one day I will do a power ranking). Homefront does a better job at establishing the characters and background before going into the action nonstop where Miz and a group of FBI Agents assault Pope’s base on an old school ferry that looks like it has seen its share of action movies. I am not looking for an academy winning plot in these type of action films by any means, but it is nice just to get a smidge of setup to get me to care for the character which Homefront does far better than Moving Target.

In Moving Target we get a brief introduction of the security team Carter is part of, and before we know it they are ambushed and are on the run throughout the rest of the film. The gunfights and action are pretty solid for both films, with both films having plenty of heated up firefights and even a couple of close hand-to-hand encounters as well. I will give the slight nod for better all around action to Homefront since it has a good range of close corridor shootouts, as well as an entertaining larger scale thugs vs. FBI shootout that brought back nostalgic moments of Lethal Weapon.

I will have to give the edge as far as casting and overall performances to Homefront as well. The Miz is surprisingly decent as Jake Carter, and dare I say it does a marginally better job than Cena and Dibiase as the head marines before him. Neal McDonough has been solid as the cheesy head villain in action movies before this, and he easily nails the antagonist role here. Vogel is an ok villain in Moving Target, but the way he is constantly second guessed by his underlings in the film does not necessarily make for a convincing villain.

Not that anyone was expecting a lot, but with all the hype WWE put into having Summer Rae in the film (it is just her and Miz on the DVD cover afterall), do not be surprised WWE treats her as an afterthought in the film much like they do the Divas division on their weekly programming. Even though she is constantly in the background as one of the mercenaries, she only has five lines of dialogue for about a total of a whopping 20 words in the film. At least she gets to have a brief fight scene with Carter that mixed up the action, but this awful bait-and-switch advertising brought back disappointing memories of WWE hyping up Behind Enemy Lines 3 by making it look like Mr. Kennedy was the lead in the trailers and film posters, when instead he was just a minor supporting role.

Both films have a small smattering of extra features. Homefront has five features totaling around 40 minutes while Moving Target has three extras totaling around 20 minutes. Of all of these I recommend checking out Shipwrecked and Casting Call on Homefront the most. The former has a great tour of the boat a good chunk of the film takes place in, while Casting Call shows how WWE had fans audition for a minor FBI Agent role in the film at Wrestlemania XXVIII Fan Axxess. Hey, that was the Mania I attended and I happened to audition for that role too! To my dismay, I did not hear back from WWE Studios to live out my dream as an extra in a Hollywood film. For Moving Target extras, I got a mild kick out of the random old on set interviews with John Cena and Ted Dibiase, along with some new clips from the Miz talking about the “legacy” of these films in The Franchise extra feature.

As you can tell, I obviously dig Homefront over Moving Target. I liked The Marine 3: Homefront for the most part, and while The Marine 4: Moving Target definitely has some drawbacks, I still had a fun time with it. Both are still decent little action film throwbacks, and if you do not mind the low budget production values and lack of major star power, you can get a decent night of old school thrills with a few beers, a bowl of popcorn and watching both of these back to back.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs


3
12 Angry Men (1957)
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
Dirty Work
Faster
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Ink
Man of Steel
Marine 3 & 4
Mortal Kombat
The Replacements
Rocky I-VI
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Source Code
Star Trek I-XII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
Veronica Mars
The Wrestler (2008)