Dwayne Johnson is well-known for his professional wrestling profession, in addition to being the smoldering motion star in enjoyable franchises like Jumanji and Quick & Livid, however his subsequent venture is an entire totally different animal. The Rock stars in A24’s The Smashing Machine, a biographical sports activities drama about MMA fighter Mark Kerr, and whereas I wasn’t certain what to anticipate from the actor in probably his most fascinating function but, critics have me hyped with their feedback from the Venice Worldwide Movie Pageant.
The Smashing Machine premiered on the movie pageant a month earlier than it hits the 2025 film calendar, and critics certain had rather a lot to say concerning the Benny Safdie film that reunites Dwayne Johnson with Emily Blunt, who he starred alongside in 2021’s The Jungle Cruise. This film was undoubtedly not a Disney theme park trip, stated Nicholas Barber of the BBC. In reality, don’t be shocked if we see Johnson’s title on the Oscars poll, the critic says, score the movie 4 out of 5 stars and saying:
As mountainous and, properly, rock-like as its protagonist seems, although, this downbeat indie movie is about somebody who may be damage, each bodily and emotionally. … Johnson is impressively susceptible when Kerr is shedding management of his life, and scarily unstable when he bickers together with his Daybreak – and he does loads of bickering.
Ryan Lattanzio of IndieWire offers it a B+, calling the upcoming A24 film “nimbly executed and oddly endearing,” although the critic disagrees that the story is awards fodder. Lattanzio writes that Benny Safdie makes use of these tropes to convey the light duet between Dwayne Johnson’s opioid-addicted fighter and his codependent girlfriend. In his phrases:
Johnson’s efficiency is out-and-out fantastic, a beady-eyed fusion of physique and spirit that osmoses Safdie’s sensibility to ship what can’t be disputed as essentially the most layered work of the actor’s profession. A vividly contradictory Blunt, humorous and unhappy particularly in articulating Daybreak’s conflicted response to Mark’s post-rehab emotional about-face throughout a tense argument, is equally sensational.
Owen Gleiberman of Variety calls The Smashing Machine “bracing, clear-eyed, and laceratingly humane,” as Benny Safdie presents extra of an intimate documentary — even utilizing the identical cameras PRIDE FC did to be able to make the fights really feel as actual as attainable — than a rousing sports activities biopic. As for The Rock, this can be a entire new web page of his profession. Gleiberman says:
Johnson, shifting his entire facet (he looks like a brand new actor), invests that silent, moody, hidden facet of Mark with a high quality of thriller. He offers a unprecedented efficiency, enjoying Mark Kerr as a mild big with demons that won’t converse their title, but the viewers can really feel them there; we wish to see these demons healed. You would possibly suppose the important thing phrase within the film’s title is ‘smashing,’ nevertheless it’s truly ‘machine.’ Mark is a person who reins in his violence by having constructed his complete self — physique and character — as a managed engine of demolition. The film is about how this man-machine turns into a human being.
Jordan Mintzer of THR additionally notes how the fights don’t really feel faux in any respect — which is amusing given Dwayne Johnson’s rise to fame through staged WWE bouts. The critic says The Smashing Machine is far much less about athletic victory than human vulnerability, writing:
In Benny Safdie’s compellingly gritty and offbeat biopic, The Smashing Machine, Kerr wavers between cold and warm, passive and aggressive, chilled-out on the sofa and pulverizing a door in his front room, showcasing a fragility that’s manner greater than his ballooning biceps. Performed by Dwayne Johnson within the wrestler-turned-actor’s most absorbing flip but, the combined martial arts champ anchors a rise-and-fall struggle flick that takes many cues from the style however by no means delivers a Rocky-style knockout — nor does it even attempt to.
Cody Dericks of Next Best Picture charges the film 7 out of 10, writing that there are “critical screenplay hiccups,” however Dwayne Johnson offers the efficiency of his profession, making The Smashing Machine not solely watchable however “entertaining and deeply shifting.” Dericks continues:
Johnson portrays Kerr with an applicable outward gentleness that solely proves correct as judged by the footage of the real-life Kerr that closes the movie. This joviality makes the scenes the place Kerr is below the hypnotic affect of painkillers much more surprising. Johnson doesn’t overdo it with stereotypical depictions of drug dependancy; he’s merely clearly not himself, like a veil has been drawn over him. The life fades from his eyes, and his power shifts in a disturbing manner. Johnson’s efficiency is additional assisted by the delicate but plausible prosthetic work by the Oscar-winning make-up legend Kazu Hiro.
A lot has been made concerning the bodily transformation Dwayne Johnson underwent for this function that included some intense make-up that mainly left The Rock unrecognizable. Nevertheless, it’s the efficiency — not the look — that has critics speaking following the movie’s pageant premiere. All of those feedback have me excited to take a look at The Smashing Machine when it hits theaters on Friday, October 3.
