When you have such an easy assignment it’s hard to figure out why things go wrong. You have Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a veteran WWE superstar in a role that was seemingly made for him. And then what do you do? Do you create the character to suit the star? Ideally yes, that would be the case. But Disney.. well, they didn’t do what we thought they would. Instead of using the amazing body that once could be seen in wrestling matches, they made him look like he was wearing a weird body suit. Think those costumes that kids get of the Hulk during Halloween.
You have such a big opportunity here to just CGI Dwayne Johnson back to his glory days and you botch it! The Rock is a BIG MAN. He doesn’t need body modifications to make him bigger. Not to mention that with the current CGI in place his arms look small. We KNOW that’s not the case.
It also looks like they made his jawline wider. All this to say that maybe it would have been better to cast an actor that already had that body type instead of trying to create it with computer graphics. Heck, they probably could have ported one of the models from a wrestling console game and gotten a better look than this.
The original feels like it JUST came out
Will what we see in the previews be what we see on screen? Probably. Will I go see it in theaters? Maybe? With Moana only just having come out in 2016 it feels way too early for the Live-Action treatment anyway. You know what else? The soundtrack for the original can’t be outdone. I’m fairly certain that this new film will bring a whole new soundtrack, but does it really need to be redone? NO!
But besides all of that and the many points that can be made that this is a version of the film that’s doomed from the start, we were really hoping that we’d at least get to see The Rock back in his former glory. You don’t need to design a character around a fictional character when the person voicing them is so magnificent on their own. And yes, I did watch hours upon hours of WWF matches back when it was WWF and not WWE. That may mean I’m biased. But I know a lot of old school wrestling fans will be just as disappointed as me. Especially if they walk into this expecting him to look like he did once upon a time and get.. well whatever this is.
