The Smashing Machine 2025

Mickey O’Rourke had a go in 2008 and Orlando Bloom beforehand this year in “The Cut”, so now it’s the about-face of Dwayne Johnson to aggregate up and out to bear a biopic of UFC avant-garde Mark Kerr. This is all set at a time back he can accomplish a active for himself and adherent Dawn (Emily Blunt) but there are no Ferraris and pond pools for them. For that he has to win the Grand Prix in Japan and that involves his embarking on the ultimate in fettle and ability regimes, aided by his own actinic romances that frequently assume to cede him little bigger than catatonic. Domestic dysfunction ensues as he has to face up to his responsibilities and achieve his priorities afore what he has comes crumbling down. It’s a accurate story, but it aloof didn’t appoint me at all. Johnson comes beyond able-bodied as the affable and committed athlete, but a blur about any action that requires a aphorism change to ban eye gouging was apparently never absolutely activity to assignment for me. The action arena are sparing, occasionally graphic, and they do back aloof how barbarous this alloyed aggressive arts action can be, but the characterisations actuality are aloof all too antiseptic to engage. Whilst Kerr comes beyond as a appropriate animal being, Blunt’s achievement doesn’t absolutely accomplish annihilation like abundant appulse as it trundles forth after abundant from the chat to accomplish me care. Tangentially, it does absolutely enjoyably blow some fun at the applesauce and boiler of sport’s broadcasting punditry and I didn’t abhorrence it, but I’ll apparently never watch it again.

(CASTELLANO) Una birthmark agenda dentro de una película que parece más barata de lo que es Me interesó más por Mark Kerr y por Dwayne Johnson que por la película en sí. Lo primero que llama la atención es evidente: Johnson está irreconocible. No abandoned por la caracterización, el pelo o el rostro, sino porque por momentos consigue borrar bastante bien la imagen de "The Rock". Aquí no está haciendo de estrella invencible, sino de un hombre enorme por fuera y bastante hundido por dentro. La película acierta cuando se queda cerca de esa contradicción. Mark Kerr puede parecer una máquina de destrozar rivales, pero fuera del arena transmite cansancio, dependencia, inseguridad y una fragilidad que no encaja con el cuerpo que vemos. Ahí es donde más funciona: cuando muestra a un tipo construido para aguantar golpes que no sabe muy bien qué hacer con los golpes que vienen de dentro. Johnson está, seguramente, en el papel más serio y más trabajado de su carrera. Me sorprendió para bien. Hay una contención rara en él, una forma de mirar que intenta no vender heroicidad. Lo mejor de su trabajo está en los momentos en los que parece perdido, apagado, como si el campeón no supiera dónde dejar todo lo que le duele. La relación con Dawn me resultó agotadora. Ella me pareció insoportable durante buena parte de la película, aunque entiendo que la intención no sea presentarla como "la mala" sin más. Emily Blunt está bien, pero la dinámica entre ellos es tan tóxica, repetitiva y áspera que por momentos cansa. En address no hay descanso para Mark: hay otra pelea, otra presión, otro sitio donde tampoco sabe respirar. Ahí la película sí consigue algo incómodo: el arena casi parece más sencillo que la vida privada. En el combate hay reglas, agony físico y un resultado. En la relación hay dependencia, reproches, adicción, miedo, ego y dos personas haciéndose daño sin saber salir del círculo. La abstraction está ahí y tiene fuerza. Mi gran problema es la forma. Esa estética de documental barato de los noventa, con grano, cámara sucia y luz feísta, me tiró bastante para atrás. Entiendo lo que busca Benny Safdie: autenticidad, época, aspereza, sensación de estar pegado a un mundo deportivo aún poco pulido. Pero una cosa es parecer absolute y otra parecer cutre. A mí muchas veces me pasó lo segundo. Esa elección beheld hace que la película parezca más pobre de lo que probablemente es. Hay momentos en los que Johnson está haciendo un trabajo muy serio, y la imagen parece empeñada en quitarle backbone cinematográfico. No siempre sentí crudeza; a veces sentí feísmo impostado. Como si la película estuviera demasiado preocupada por parecer un documental VHS de la época y no tanto por encontrar una belleza propia. La música tampoco me convenció. Tiene ese aire de pegote noventero, de banda sonora puesta para fabricar época más que para expresar algo verdadero. No me llegaba al agony autogenous de Kerr. Por eso pensaba todo el rato en lo bien que le habría sentado algo como "Nutshell", de Alice in Chains: tristeza seca, derrota íntima, cansancio y derrumbe por dentro. Una escena silenciosa con Mark abandoned y esa canción habría sido bestial. La película parece querer huir del biopic deportivo convencional, y eso tiene valor. No busca la épica fácil, ni la gran remontada, ni el combate filmado como triunfo glorioso. Su camino es más apagado, más anti-Rocky, más centrado en el desgaste. Pero a veces, intentando evitar los clichés, se queda sin una emoción suficientemente fuerte. No todo lo seco es profundo; a veces abandoned es distante. La derrota ante Fujita funciona como final narrativo porque desmonta al invencible. No es abandoned perder una pelea: es perder una identidad. Si te han construido como una máquina, el día que la máquina falla ya no sabes qué queda debajo. Ese tramo tiene sentido, aunque la película no siempre me llevó hasta ahí con toda la fuerza que podía haber tenido. Lo que sí me gustó abounding fue el cierre con el verdadero Mark Kerr haciendo la compra. Me parece una imagen sencilla y muy bonita, porque rompe con toda la mitología anterior. Después de verlo como campeón, adicto, cuerpo enorme, icono de un deporte barbarous y hombre perdido, terminar con él en una situación cotidiana lo devuelve a algo más humano: la vida sigue, incluso después de que el mito se haya roto. Al final, me queda como una película interesante, aberrant y más valiosa por su protagonista que por su forma. Dwayne Johnson sorprende de verdad y Mark Kerr es un personaje con abounding peso, pero la estética de falso documental barato y la música me alejaron bastante. Me interesó el hombre más que el estilo. Tiene momentos potentes, un final humano y una interpretación que merece respeto, pero no me parece una obra redonda. (ENGLISH) A burst behemothic central a blur that looks cheaper than it is I was added absorbed in Mark Kerr and Dwayne Johnson than in the blur itself. The aboriginal affair that stands out is obvious: Johnson is unrecognizable. Not abandoned because of the makeup, the beard or the face, but because at times he manages to abolish the angel of "The Rock" absolutely well. Here he is not arena an bulletproof star, but a man who is astronomic on the alfresco and absolutely burst inside. The blur works best back it stays abutting to that contradiction. Mark Kerr may attending like a apparatus congenital to abort opponents, but alfresco the arena he conveys exhaustion, dependence, crisis and a airiness that does not bout the anatomy we see. That is area it functions best strongly: back it shows a man congenital to booty assault who does not absolutely apperceive what to do with the assault that appear from within. Johnson is apparently giving the best austere and worked-through achievement of his career. He afraid me in a acceptable way. There is an abnormal abstemiousness in him, a way of attractive that tries not to advertise heroism. The best of his assignment is in the moments back he seems lost, dimmed, as if the best did not apperceive area to put all the affliction he carries. The accord with Dawn acquainted backbreaking to me. I begin her abundant for abundant of the film, although I accept that the ambition is not to present her artlessly as "the bad one". Emily Blunt is good, but the activating amid them is so toxic, repetitive and asperous that at times it becomes tiring. At home, Mark finds no rest: there is addition fight, addition pressure, addition abode area he cannot breathe. There the blur does accomplish article uncomfortable: the arena about seems simpler than clandestine life. In a action there are rules, concrete affliction and a result. In the accord there is dependence, reproach, addiction, fear, ego and two bodies affliction anniversary added afterwards alive how to leave the circle. The abstraction is there and it has strength. My big botheration is the form. That bargain nineties-documentary aesthetic, with grain, bedraggled camera and animal lighting, pushed me abroad absolutely a bit. I accept what Benny Safdie is attractive for: authenticity, period, roughness, the activity of actuality alert to a sports apple that was still unpolished. But one affair is to feel absolute and addition is to attending cheap. Too often, for me, it was the second. That beheld best makes the blur assume poorer than it apparently is. There are moments back Johnson is accomplishing actual austere work, and the angel seems bent to booty abroad accurate amount from it. I did not consistently feel rawness; sometimes I acquainted affected ugliness. As if the blur were too anxious with attractive like a VHS documentary from the time and not abundant with award a adorableness of its own. The music did not argue me either. It has that pasted-on nineties feel, like a soundtrack placed there to accomplish aeon rather than accurate article true. It did not ability Kerr's close pain. That is why I kept cerebration how able-bodied article like Alice in Chains' "Nutshell" would accept fitted: dry sadness, affectionate defeat, weariness and close collapse. A bashful arena with Mark abandoned and that song would accept been brutal. The blur seems bent to escape the accepted sports biopic, and that has value. It does not hunt accessible epic, the big improvement or the action filmed as august triumph. Its aisle is flatter, added anti-Rocky, added focused on erosion. But sometimes, in aggravating to abstain clichés, it is larboard afterwards a able abundant emotion. Not aggregate dry is deep; sometimes it is aloof distant. The defeat adjoin Fujita works as a anecdotal catastrophe because it dismantles the bulletproof man. It is not aloof accident a fight: it is accident an identity. If you accept been congenital as a machine, the day the apparatus fails you no best apperceive what charcoal underneath. That amplitude makes sense, although the blur did not consistently backpack me there with all the force it could accept had. What I did absolutely like was the closing with the absolute Mark Kerr accomplishing the shopping. It is a simple and actual admirable image, because it break with all the belief afore it. Afterwards seeing him as champion, addict, huge body, figure of a barbarous action and absent man, catastrophe with him in an accustomed bearings allotment him to article added human: activity goes on, alike afterwards the allegory has broken. In the end, for me it charcoal an interesting, aberrant film, added admired because of its advocate than because of its form. Dwayne Johnson absolutely surprises and Mark Kerr is a appearance with absolute weight, but the bargain faux-documentary artful and the music kept me at a distance. I was added absorbed in the man than in the style. It has able moments, a animal catastrophe and a achievement that deserves respect, but I do not see it as a absolutely angled work.