Rotten Tomatoes Score for 'The Smashing Machine' Is Surprisingly Mixed
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Reviews for Dwayne Johnson’s new movie, The Smashing Machine, have dropped ahead of its Oct. 3 release, and they’re surprisingly mixed. Up until earlier this week, buzz for Benny Safdie’s sports biopic had been all positive. Currently, the movie holds a 76 percent critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s not bad, but it’s significantly lower than many were expecting for one of the year’s most anticipated Oscar plays.
Despite Early Buzz, Critics Are Mixed
The Smashing Machine stars Johnson as MMA fighter Mark Kerr, who with the help of his wife (Emily Blunt) and his trainer (Ryan Bader) rises to the top of the pack as an amateur wrestler and brawler. Safdie’s film is based upon the 2002 documentary The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr and has drawn praise from early audiences, but it’s currently the director’s lowest-scoring movie on Rotten Tomatoes. (Safdie has co-directed three features with his brother Josh—2014’s Heaven Knows What (89 percent), 2017’s Good Time (91 percent), and 2019’s Uncut Gems (also 91 percent).
While The Smashing Machine represents a populist turn for the filmmaker, some critics are arguing that it came at the expense of quality. Writing for Newsday, Rafer Guzman slated the movie for being “too serious.” “A too-serious star and a scattered screenplay make for a low-energy sports drama,” he determined. The New Yorker’s Richard Brody felt similarly. “Safdie takes a story of passion and fury, of rage and torment, and reduces it to the arm’s-length mode of the interesting,” Brody wrote.
Interestingly, In Review Online’s Andrew Digman also thought the movie approached its subject at “arm’s length.” “There’s no real reason for the film to be as arm’s length as it is toward its subject,” Digman opined. “The Smashing Machine is portraiture without perspective.” The Nightly’s Wenlei Ma was similarly unimpressed. “The Smashing Machine, for something that promised an unforgettable story about a legend, is too ordinary to make a real impression,” Ma said.
But Many Are Still Praising the Film
But not all of the reviews have been negative. Many have praised the film, with the performances of Johnson, Blunt, and Bader high atop the list. Men’s Journal’s review commended Johnson’s work, writing: “Nearly 30 years into his acting career, Johnson delivers the performance of his lifetime in a film which wisely pares back biopic cliches to reveal the man behind the legend. At this point, he seems like a shoo-in for a Best Actor nomination. At this point, he seems the likely winner.”
“Dwayne Johnson completely disappears here—the best performance of his career,” raved Fico Cangiano in CineXpress. “Safdie's sports biopic is at times brutal and in-your-face, but also emotional, sweet, and inspiring. The Rock is cooking, and coming for that Oscar.” Randy Myers, writing for the San Jose Mercury News, likewise praised the actors, particularly newcomer Bader. “What clicks are all scenes between Johnson and Ryan Bader, the MMA star-turned-actor who’s more than merely convincing as Kerr’s coach and mentor, Mark Coleman.” Leigh Paatch, of The Daily Telegraph, admitted that the movie “follows a conventional trajectory” but lauded its “ability to hold an intimate focus on Kerr’s anchoring relationship with his unflaggingly loyal partner Dawn (Blunt) is a welcome and warming point of difference.”