The Marine: Homefront [Blu-Ray]

During the opening propaganda recruit video, masked conveniently as a back story on Middle-American, meat and potatoes robot Jake Carter (WWE's Mike "the Miz" Mizanin), we learn that the Marines gave him the confidence, direction and structure necessary to serve his country like a well-oiled machine. Stock footage of Marines jumping out of planes, running with guns, diving into the ocean and blowing shit up accompanies high school photos of Mizanin being a general douche, making sex faces or flexing in almost every picture. The message: being a Marine makes you super-awesome and ensures a lifetime of endless poontang. As the third instalment of the military franchise unfolds, with maximum lethargy and exceedingly dead, subtext-free dialogue, outside of the preachy exposition, Jake Carter takes a trip home from his adrenaline rush life. Morally outraged that his sisters have started to establish an existence beyond him, he's positioned as a bit of a problem; he's an outsider imposing old school Republican morality on a community that's been tainted by feminism and liberal flexibility. Making matters worse is dime-store philosopher/bank robber Johan Pope (Neal McDonough), who burns the money he steals, endlessly bitching about fat cats that shuffle money around and bankers that foreclose homes, regurgitating the blanket "greed" thing that undergrads have been babbling about for the last two years. Inevitably, the evil liberal agenda comes into conflict with our knuckle-dragging protagonist when Pope inexplicably kidnaps his younger sister (Ashley Bell) after she witnesses a murder. Why Pope keeps her alive and why he feels compelled to complain about greed running rampant in America while she's tied up in a chair is never really explained, nor does it even matter. FBI agents pop up — serving little narrative purpose — merely interfering with the rudimentary ass-kicking vengeance our pro-wrestler, hardcore Conservative hero doles out in a compounding series of poorly choreographed and executed fight scenes. A couple of explosions go off and the "America: Fuck yeah!" subtext is spelled out in a Scooby Doo capacity, reminding us of the importance of Marines, and then the entire ordeal is resolved without any genuine plausibility or logic (so, since he's a soldier, he can just brutally murder whoever he wants without consequence?). In the Blu-Ray supplements, Mizanin acts like a complete jackass during a "Casting Call," win-a-role-in-the-movie contest for wrestling fans, which is at least more interesting to watch than the two different featurettes on the climactic, half-sunken boat location shooting. Apparently, it stunk and was a bit of a hazard. I guess you had to be there.