OPENS MARCH 10, CERT PG, 105 MINS
The Rock’s grounding as a man in lycra pants swapping sweat with mullet-topped behemoths for the entertainment of WWF crowds has stood him in good stead. He has enough showmanship to win over a fractious audience with little more than a camply arched eyebrow, and he’s not afraid of making a tit of himself. This is an underrated trait in an action movie star, and one that injects immense appeal into this otherwise routine rumble in the jungle. The Rock plays a bounty hunter sent to retrieve a mobster’s troublesome son (Seann William Scott) from the Brazilian jungle. But the pair are soon caught up in a rebellion against the local despot (Christopher Walken, at his most entertainingly deranged). Avoiding guns?at least until the climax of the film?The Rock creates havoc in some impressively choreographed, imaginative fight scenes. He also collects recipes and gets his ass whupped by an eight-stone South American Indian. I can’t imagine that humourless lunk Vin Diesel doing anything like that.