Top 10 Favorite Dwayne Johnson Movies
This past weekend Black Adam finally dropped in theaters. The first live action comic book movie from Dwayne Johnson so in celebration of that I wanted to share my 10 favorite Dwayne Johnson movie. Let’s get started!
10. Red Notice: A fun but pretty generic and familiar action comedy with three charismatic leads. This movie broke records for most watches in it’s opening day, and it all boils down to the cast. Where in the lead you have Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds and these are two of the most charismatic leading men in Hollywood, and putting them in a movie where they are playing off of one another is just really fun to see. Then you throw Gal Gadot into the mix as the villain, and it just adds to the movie. All three of them are big fun movie stars, and all of them are giving it their all. It’s also just a slick production with a big budget and so they can do some big action set pieces and it all looks slick and professional. This is a movie that is more entertaining then it is good on a story level. This is a movie that is not trying to be this deep exploration of the human race and explore ideas. It is a movie that is trying to entertain it’s audience, and it does a solid job at that.
9. Jungle Cruise: A movie based on popular ride at Disneyland that they decided to convert into a movie. In the lead is Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt and they just have great chemistry between them. Once again, they are two big movie stars that have great chemistry with each other and know how to star in big slick productions like this. And with how many sequels, remakes, and reboots Disney has planned over the coming years, it’s a bit nice and refreshing that we are getting a movie that is not either one of those things. And this is a movie that Disney poured $200 million into it’s budget and so all of the shots are in focus, the action is big, and set pieces are massive. So this is a movie that if you are looking for a fun action adventure film with big charismatic movie stars, this movie will deliver the experience that you want.
8. Moana: A fun Disney animated adventure with some truely great things about it. First up, they just nailed all of the characters. All of them are fun, charming, and you like to be around them. For me I think that Moana is one of the best protagonist in a Disney animated movie of the last 10-15 years, she is somebody that you care about it and you care about the journey that she is on. Dwayne Johnson as Maui is great casting, he can play this selfish douchebag very well, and obviously he is great at singing. Speaking of singing, the next thing that this movie gets right is the songs. All of the songs here are memorable, great, and catchy. “You’re Welcome” and “How Far I’ll Go” would be two stand outs for me. And finally as it is a Disney animated movie, the animation style here is simply gorgeous, colorful, and overall great to look at. So this is a movie that is a very good addition to the Disney canon, and a very good Dwayne Johnson movie.
7. Jumanji: The Next Level: Now I know that several people were disappointed by this movie and thought it was a significant step down from the original movie. As for me, I don’t think it’s as good but I’ve seen it two times and both times I really enjoyed it. It has everything that you liked about the original movie, you get some great moments with the action and the comedy. Of course, the cast here is just having a lot of fun playing these characters. And just seeing Dwayne Johnson act like Danny DeVito and Kevin Hart act like Danny Glover is just fun to see, it’s something just new and different enough from the original movie but it just works all the same. And just in general, this is a movie that I had a lot of fun with. It’s not trying to be this big epic awesome movie, it’s just trying to entertain the audience for 2 hours and it does that.
6. Fast and Furious 6: Now this is a movie that came out when the Fast and Furious franchise was in it’s prime, and in some ways still is in it’s prime. Because I think all of the Fast and Furious movies from Fast Five to F9 range from very good to great popcorn action movies. And this is the one of that batch of movies that has always been the weakest, but it’s still a lot of fun. You get plenty of big bombastic action scenes that really pushing your basic understanding of physics. The group dynamic here is once again great, this is probably the best “team” within the Fast and Furious movies. The stuff with Roman bickering off against Hobbs is really really funny. And of course, this all leads to a finale with quite possibly the longest runway in movie history, it doesn’t make a lot of sense but that’s kind of where the fun comes from.
5. Fast and Furious Presents: Hobbs and Shaw: This is a movie that has kind of grown on me the more times that I’ve watched it. I’ve always enjoyed it, I’ve always had a fun time with it. But I do think this is a movie that is very entertaining is build around the chemistry between Hobbs and Shaw, in which their back and forth is what makes this movie what it is. And it just helps show that Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham have great chemistry with one another. And I think they are one of the best movie duos in recent movie history. Then adding in Vanessa Kirby in as Shaw’s sister just changes up the dynamic in just enough ways, that it keeps things fresh and fun. And this movie delivers one of the best finales in the entire franchise with Hobbs and his family taking out Idris Elba’s genetically enhanced army. Where in the finale you get Dwayne Johnson holding onto the back of a truck while holding on to a chain that is attached to a helicopter. It’s dumb, it disobeys all of the laws of physics but it’s a movie that is incredibly entertaining and very fun to watch.
4. Black Adam: The movie that has been a passion project for The Rock for a long time. The Rock was cast as Black Adam back in November 2007 and it was announced a Black Adam was going to be made in September 2014. And finally in October 2022 the movie came out and I really dug it. I liked getting to see The Rock in a comic book movie and I thought he nailed playing Black Adam. Where he can play both the dark anti-hero as well as the fun charismatic lead that The Rock plays really well. Pierce Brosnan and Aldis Hodge were some other stand-outs that played really well off of The Rock’s personality. And it also just fleshes out the DC universe in some fun ways with cameos that were shown in the marketing and other cameos that are big surprises that fans will be freaking out in the theaters. So in general, I really dug this movie. I thought it was a great time at the movies. And I will say that this is one of the better DCEU movies to date. So if you were skeptical about this movie, if the trailers didn’t work for you I would go see this movie.
3. The Fate of the Furious: The eighth movie in the long running franchise is one that I’ve always thought was great, and once again have never really understood much of the hate this movie gets. This is a movie that delivers on being big, stupid, and awesome. This is a movie that once again disobeys all of the laws of physics in order to put a grin on the audience face. This is the movie that laid the ground work with the chemistry between Hobbs and Shaw, for Hobbs and Shaw to happen. And just in general, this is a perfect example of what I wanted from this franchise. Fun characters, great jokes, and big dumb action scenes. So once again, I know this is the point in the franchise where people started to loose faith with it and thought they went to far. In some ways, I agree with that but in other ways I like that this franchise is getting dumb and stupid.
2. Fast Five: The introduction to Luke Hobbs aka Dwayne Johnson’s character in this franchise. And I think most everybody would agree that this is the movie where things really started to pick up with him in it, and gave this franchise a much needed boost of energy. And this is also the installment of the franchise where they realized they had a pretty silly franchise and embraced that. In the finale you have two sports car pulling a safe down the streets of Rio. And it makes you think “could two sports call pull a safe down a street?” I don’t know, so this is the point where they went dumb, and fun with everything but didn’t go to far, didn’t go to over the top with the action. Like I said earlier, I think having Dwayne Johnson in this movie really elevates it as he just has this big screen presents about him and steals every scene he is in. Now normally in my Fast and Furious rankings, I have Furious 7 at number one and that’s still the case. But since Johnson’s role in that movie is pretty short, I decided not to include it on this list.
1. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle: One of the biggest surprise of all time, this is a movie that when they announced they were going to reboot Jumanji with Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan I thought that sounded like a terrible idea. And the trailers didn’t really work for me, until about a month before this movie was released and I started to get pretty excited for it. I finally saw the movie and I thought it was great, it was a great and fun action adventure movie. It delivers on all of the things that you would expect from this type of movie. Of course the cast is having a lot of fun playing these high schoolers. And it’s a movie that has a lot more heart inside of it where each of the high schoolers’ avatar represent something them are lacking. So the timid and scared high schooler suddenly becomes the muscle, the big football that likes to take charge becomes the side kick, the hot popular girl at school becomes an over weight middle age guy, and the scared girl becomes the ultimate female warrior. So all in all, this is a movie that I think is great, funny, and heartfelt.
There you have it, my 10 favorite Dwayne Johnson movies. What are some of your favorite Dwayne Johnson movies? Also, I’ve done several top 10 lists for different actors such as Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks. And I do plan on doing more of these in the future, Matt Damon is probably coming after Oppenheimer next July. Thanks for reading!
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