Released: 2nd October 2025
Seen: 9th February 2026
Over the last several decades, one of the biggest names in cinema has been The Rock, AKA Dwayne Johnson. His films have grossed billions of dollars; he is currently the 10th-highest-grossing actor of all time, and he did all that without having to appear in a Marvel film or anything involving Avatar. He’s one of the highest paid, most recognisable and most beloved film stars of recent years… but he’s not a great actor. Let’s be honest, no one’s ever accused him of giving a transformative performance in his entire career; the man is a personality who effectively plays himself in every single film he ever appears in. Now this isn’t a bad thing per se, a lot of very famous actors are kind of known for playing themselves in every film that they do (Ryan Reynolds, Jack Black, Will Ferrell just to name the first three that come to mind). With Dwayne Johnson, however, it comes with the fact that he not only plays the same character, but he’s doing it at a time when his wrestler-turned-actor contemporaries John Cena and Dave Bautista are delivering genuinely great, layered acting performances that demonstrate a range that Dwayne just hasn’t been able to do. What Dwayne’s been needing for quite some time is a chance to show off his skills, to stretch himself and prove that he isn’t just a one-trick pony… The Smashing Machine does kind of prove that, but in a way that also really shows off his limitations
The Smashing Machine is a biopic on the life of wrestler-turned-MMA-fighter Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson), specifically focused on a brief period between 1997 and 2000 when Mark was preparing for the 2000 Pride Grand Prix. It details his training, his tumultuous relationship with Dawn Staples (Emily Blunt) and his addiction to opiates that almost kills him and the difficulties of trying to prepare for a major tournament that overwhelms him. It’s your standard biopic treatment. The performer gets a big break, almost screws it up with drugs, deals with relationship issues, then either has the best performance of their life or comes to a dramatic realization that they don’t need the drugs in order to live a rich, full life, roll credits.
As far as biopics go, and I’ve never really been a fan of them, The Smashing Machine is definitely one of the more watchable ones. Under director Benny Safdie, we’re really only given the bare bones of what’s happened; some major elements feel like they’ve been skipped because we really just want to focus on the scenes that allow Dwayne’s performance as Mark to take centre stage. We don’t need to see him overdose; we can just hear about it and then see him in the hospital showing the emotional impact of the overdose. While this might feel off to some, it does help the film along when it risks getting boring. It manages to maintain interest by focusing on a small period of Mark’s life, which gives the movie a considerable amount of power and energy that it wields expertly.
Of course, like all biopics, The Smashing Machine almost entirely relies on the main performance to carry it and that’s where things get interesting. Dwayne does the entire performance in some of the best prosthetics that have been put on film in quite some time. There’s a reason that this film’s only Oscar nomination is in the Makeup department, because they have taken the incredibly recognisable face of Dwayne Johnson and transformed him into Mark Kerr without a single speck of Dwayne to be seen. So often, a performer under heavy makeup still can kind of look like the performer, no matter how good the makeup is, their facial structure gives away the facade but here you simply cannot look at this and see Dwayne Johnson. He physically vanished into the character; the makeup does a ton of the work but he helps it by changing his physicality, how he moves in the room, how his expressions work and it lets him give an actual performance. The man has acting talent that he finally gets to really show off, all they had to do was completely change what his face looked like. Seriously, the makeup is so good, it’s no wonder it’s this film’s Oscar nomination.
Now, notice I said that Dwayne’s performance is a completely different PHYSICAL performance? Yeah, it still sounds exactly like Dwayne’s normal inflections, voice, tone, everything. I’m not saying he has to do a pitch-perfect impression of Mark Kerr (Who sounds completely different to Dwayne), indeed, a good biopic doesn’t need a perfect vocal mimic to be good. My favourite biopic, Rocketman, is carried by a lead performance that doesn’t sound a lot like the original performer, but he does match the cadence and it feels like it fits the visual. Hearing Dwayne’s normal speaking voice come out of this insane physical transformation often feels like a bad dub job. It can be so jarring at times just hearing this very well-known voice come out without a single solitary attempt to change it and it’s particularly jarring in scenes where Emily Blunt, noted English lady, is putting her entire heart into an American accent. She’s fully vanished into a character, he’s most of the way there but that little bit that keeps peeking out is hard to ignore.
This isn’t to say that Dwayne’s performance is bad, I dare say this is the best acting of his entire career and really gives me hope that he’s going to take more big risks like this and present us with something in the future that’ll get him the same level of praise that his contemporaries get, but it’s got some elements that stand out so much that it’s harder to engage with the material in the way that I’m sure they’d like you do. The Smashing Machine, in general, has a few of those moments where it just doesn’t grab you like you feel it should, and considering this is a biopic involving people overdosing you’d think that’d be easy. Hell, this film is by one of the Safdie brothers who are kind of known for making wildly engaging films that can feel like slow-moving panic attacks but this doesn’t have that same vibe, maybe it’s just that the film is too long because every single movie nowadays feels like it needs to be 2 hours when really 90 minutes will often do the trick. There are just enough little moments that can’t help but lose the viewer’s attention because they’re either not as engaging as they could be or there’s something incredibly jarring (like that voice) that’s hard to get over.
Again, The Smashing Machine is definitely on the better end of the biopic spectrum, though with me that mostly just means it’s kind of watchable. It wasn’t completely boring, it had great performances, they tried to do something different with the structure of the thing and god damn that makeup is the best thing that anyone involved has ever done but it really could be so much more. It’s good enough, enjoyable, but you can feel everyone is trying to shoot for greatness and never quite getting there. It gives me hope that Dwayne might actually have some real acting talent that he’ll show off again, but considering how badly this bombed and the flaws it’s revealed I won’t be shocked if the man never makes another swing again.
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