The Marine 4: Moving Target

OK, granted I love shoot em up movies for the mindless entertainment on rainy days curled up with popcorn and no expectations for great performances. But this is a waste of talent and nothing more than proving script writers without talent can ruin an actor's career.. The Miz, a better actor than this movie deserves, struggles with the poor plot and Summer, well I am not sure why she is even in this movie other than to mumble a few lines. I would have refused the role as it is a career buster and not career enhancer. She could have had a real role other than jumping into and out of scenes cocking a gun. I am a WWE fan and have seen what good movie scripts and talented wrestlers can do together. This is not one of them. Sorry, no spoiler as the movie is so predictable and lame, it gives itself away. I hope Miz and Summer ( I am a huge fan of both ) find better movie opportunities despite their contract obligations to appear in such trash.

Audiences should be aware that The Marine 4 is the epitome of B-movie, it has a simple premise and is designed to entertain with least amount of effort. To its credit, the movie does serve that purpose. It offers lots of shooting spree as well as decently choreography melee combat, even though some of its logic are admittedly flawed and the protagonists wear magical plot armors.

Jake Carter (Mike Mizanin or The Miz) is starting a new job as a security guard for high value target, a whistle-blower by the name of Olivia Tanis (Melissa Roxburgh). Soon he realizes that the implication Olivia could do is far reaching, and he must do his best to keep her safe. Acting from The Miz is surprisingly good. He's a pretty suitable lead, creating the disheartened veteran persona well. This is better than most exaggerated roles of action genre, although he does look a bit confused at times.

Matthew MacCaull as the antagonist is above the rest. He presents a conniving personality that presentably irritating. Melissa Roxburgh as the female lead however, is distinctly bad. Her character is supposed to be a brash woman with brave attitude, but it turns out to be an annoying and highly unsympathetic bickering damsel. The rest of cast is your typical mercenaries. Summer Rae makes an appearance as well, while she has so few lines, she does look the part of fit femme fatale.

Plot and action are severely unrealistic. People are shooting for half of the movie, it's not even a hyperbole. Scenes are basically Jake and random mercs spraying bullets at each other, without the need of reloading and unsurprisingly Jake has far better accuracy. The fisticuffs are marginally better as the fights are choreographed with good impact.

The Marine 4 is, as expected, ninety minutes of mindless shooting and punching, nothing more. It's not Bourne, but it will do for mindless fun.

Forget the original movie The Marine. This movie provides a lot of action in the style of The Terminator. Sure, it will not win an Oscar but the plot is somewhat believable and the acting is good. I found it to be very entertaining.

"The Marine 4: Moving Target" succeeds as mindless entertainment. It is related only thematically to "The Marine" (2006), sharing only the basic common elements: a highly capable and decorated former marine attempting to adjust to civilian life, a damsel in distress and a group of ruthless villains with enough firepower to invade the Falklands.

It was produced on a tenth of the budget of the original and its limitations are obvious. The fight choreography is solid, although not of the caliber seen in "Furious 7" or "The Raid." Car chases are fairly lame, on the level of television dramas. The script is an embarrassment, particularly compared to the clever plots developed for the "12 Rounds" movies. Dialogue is hackneyed. Character development is essentially nonexistent. The plot is a rehash of "Eraser" without the locations, character backgrounds, special effects and (thankfully) without that ridiculous portable rail gun.

Given that they haven't anything particularly interesting to say, the actors do a credible job. Mike 'The Miz' Mizanin is believable evincing the virtues of the Marine Corps while feeling awkward in civilian life and uncertain of how to act without clear orders. Josh Blacker is convincing as the relentless, remorseless adversary. They are both adept in the fight scenes. Melissa Roxburgh is not the most gifted thespian to grace a WWE production, but is believable when she stands around looking gorgeous and slightly vulnerable. However, she wears too many clothes throughout. A little more skin would have made her seem more vulnerable and boosted the sexual tension. MacCaull and Moinet do as well as can be expected with what they're given.

The producers might have gotten more bang for their limited bucks by investing more in script development to make the characters more complex, interesting and sympathetic. As a mindless vicarious adrenalin fix, the fight scenes are satisfying and occur with sufficient frequency to compensate for the disappointing car chases and gun battles.

Over-muscled one man army. Check. Escorting witness to testify. Check. Betrayal by an insider for illogical reasons. Check. Pretty but annoying airhead female witness whose actions make life harder on the one man army protecting her. Check. Special forces bad guys who learned marksmanship from Imperial Stormtroopers. Check. Good guy wins, bad guys die. Check.

Four stars for something to watch.