The Marine 5 – Battleground: Blu-ray Review
The Movie:
After returning stateside and now working as an EMT, Jake Carter (Mike “The Miz” Mizanin) finds himself trapped with an injured, marked man he’s sworn to save. As a ruthless biker gang bent on revenge gains speed, Carter must use his killer Marine instincts to end the rampage… or die trying!
I’ve reviewed pretty much all (okay maybe not all) of the WWE Studios films and for the most part I’ve enjoyed them. However, I’ve always gone into them with a tad bit of hesitation for the simple fact that movies like this can go very wrong very quick because of the type of movie it is. The film gets going pretty quickly which was really good in my opinion. Since the film is a straight up action movie then the quicker you can get to exciting parts the better. Mizanin actually did a good job in the film and much like the previous Marine films he was in he was equally as entertaining. The main thing that I liked about the film was the minimal amount of locations that were used. In doing that it made it feel like the stakes were a lot higher and the action sequences feel really important. Now the main thing that had me concerned about the movie is the overabundance of WWE Superstars and my concerns were definitely valid. All of the superstars caused a distraction to the story and made it feel cheesier than what it already was which was a bit of a bummer. The other thing that I didn’t like was that Maryse was advertised as being in the film and she’s even on the cover but the time that she’s on screen is probably around 5 minutes or so. There was no need for that. Much like many of the WWE Studios it doesn’t hide the fact that it’s an action movie that doesn’t require much thought as well as it feeling like a throwback to 90’s action cinema but I do think that this one went overboard a bit and tried to throw many of their WWE Superstars in one film. Things like that just don’t totally work right. Was it entertaining? It was. I found it to be a really fun film but WWE Studios aren’t going to be taken seriously as a production company if they keep churning out movies like this. They need to step it up and I hope it happens soon. 6/10
Special Features:
Evening The Odds – This is a Behind The Scenes feature that includes cast and crew interviews as well as some explanation of the stunt work.
Superstar Studded – WWE Superstars talk a bit about being together in a film and working on set.
