WWE WrestleMania/Hollywood: Ranking The Rock's 15 Major Film Roles

The Rock is, without a doubt, the greatest crossover success to come out of the WWE. His career in Hollywood is more substantial than any other wrestler's outside projects.

With The Rock's Hollywood career being the focus of most of John Cena's rants about him, I thought it would be appropriate to take a look at the career Rocky took off for.

The Rock may be the most electrifying man in sports entertainment, but he is not quite as electrifying on screen.

While his standard action flicks will always draw in the alpha-male crowd, his family-friendly movies are a bit more on the ridiculous side of things.

His brief experience in drama is by far the most insane thing on his resume next to being featured with that ridiculous haircut when he first debuted.

While ranking these films roles I will only include medium- to starring-sized roles, which means his cameos in You Again and Reno 911: Miami will not be included, but his roles in The Other Guys, Get Smart and Be Cool will be since they were larger roles than just a cameo.

Fun fact: The Rock has officially become the highest grossing film star who started as a wrestler, since his films have grossed over a billion dollars worldwide.

He also holds the world record for being the highest-paid star in his first role when he was paid $5 million to play the Scorpion King.

The Scorpion King/Mummy Returns

The Rock's short role in the beginning of The Mummy Returns led to him starring in his own feature film as the same title character.

This role, being his first major role in his own film, showed what a novice he was at acting when he wasn't being The Rock.

His lines were delivered with very little believability, and the whole movie seemed to rely on the fact that people knew him as a wrestler.

While the film probably has its fans, this ranks the lowest on the list and I am not sure I will have many people disagreeing with me.

Doom

This was almost the last one on the list, but after considering how much I loved Doom as a child, I thought it should be a little higher, but not much.

This film was so bad that even Rocky makes fun of his performance in the over-stylized and over-acted video-game adaptation.

The entire film pretty much dumped on the legacy built up by the game it came from, and the diehard fans who spent hours perfecting their first-person shooting skills.

The Tooth Fairy

Did The Rock learn nothing from seeing Hulk Hogan in Mr. Nanny? Whenever you take a muscular wrestler and put him in an embarrassing gender-reversing role, you get a disaster of a film.

The Rock may have been somewhat funny as he always is, but his enthusiasm was not enough to save this atrocity.

If The Rock had not been in this film, I would hold him in much higher regard as an actor.

The Game Plan

Another family-friendly comedy from Dwayne Johnson saw him take a carbon copy of the little girl who used to do Pepsi commercials and become her father after she shows up on his doorstep unannounced.

This film, while not great, is better than the previous entries on the list. The Rock as a football player is a natural fit since he was a standout college star.

The movie is the typical "We didn't get along, but now we do" kind of feel-good movie, but it also has its moments of comedy for the adults to enjoy.

The one saving grace in this film is that we get to see Rocky bust out his Elvis impression once again.

The Rundown

What do you get when you combine that annoying guy from American Pie with a guy who loves to talk about Pie? You get a so-so movie called The Rundown.

Sean William Scott and The Rock did not have the level of chemistry I would have hoped for, but Christopher Walken was the redeeming factor that kept this off the bottom of the list.

The film had its share of humorous moments, and the action scenes were directed better than most of the cheesy scenes on Rocky's action films.

Overall, this film is enjoyable enough to watch when its free on TV.

Race to Witch Mountain

Yet another of Rocky's family-friendly movies. This time, the Great One is escorting two aliens who look like children to a secret military base to claim their stolen UFO.

The Rock and Carla Gugino are the adult leads, and Gugino's overly excited UFO expert was a little too much for me to rank this film higher.

She is a great actress who seemed to be out of place in a role that would have been better suited to a lesser-known female lead.

The film had decent special effects and did a good job of mixing humor with the drama of government thugs trying to strong-arm a former convict.

Fast Five

The Rock may not have been the main character, but his role helped propel him to get a deal for two additional Fast films.

This movie saw The Rock in one of his more violent roles as a US Government agent tasked with bringing back Paul Walker and Vin Diesel's characters to the US.

Rocky did better than expected in a franchise that seemed to be going downhill for the last couple of films.

If The Rock had not been in this role, then this movie would not have been as good as it was, and it wasn't really that great to begin with.

Walking Tall

Loosely based on a true story, this film sees The Rock return to his hometown only to find it has been over run by crooked cops and meth dealers.

Johnny Knoxville provided the comic relief as Rocky's best friend who joins him in the Sheriff's office after Rocky wins the local election for the office.

The film, while based on a true story, fails to really become a great story and instead focuses on the action scenes in the casino and the Sheriff's office.

As a 4x4-wielding man on a mission The Rock gave one of his better action-movie performances here.

Faster

The Rock played a man out for revenge in this film, which saw more violence than we are used to getting from his movies.

While this movie did not jump out as one of the best action films of the year, it certainly gave Rocky a chance to show his more serious side, which we don't get enough of from his movies.

This film confused some fans before it came out, because it was released within enough time for people to confuse it with another Fast and Furious sequel due to the title and the fact that Rocky was heavily promoted as having joined Fast 5.

Planet 51

The Rock's first feature animated role came when he played an astronaut who had crash-landed on an alien planet which seemed to be in a period similar to the 1950's in America.

The movie followed The Rock's character as a young alien tried to hide him and help him get back to his ship to head home to earth.

As a movie for kids this actually had some enjoyable comedy for adults, which seems to be a trend in the animated films of today.

The Rock did a good job of being enthusiastic, which cannot be easy when you are in a booth just reading from a sheet of paper.

Get Smart

Another of Rocky's smaller, but funnier roles came in the Steve Carell vehicle Get Smart.

As another agent in the same spy organization as Carell, The Rock played the cool, always gets it done kind of guy, while Carell played Maxwell Smart to perfection.

As someone who watched every episode of the original show repeatedly on Nick at Nite as a child, I was happy with how this remake turned out.

The Rock should have been in more of the film, but it wasn't his movie and after all, there is such a thing as too much people's eyebrow.

Who am I kidding, no there isn't.

Be Cool

The actual movie was nothing compared to Get Shorty, this first in the franchise, but The Rock was the brightest spot in the film.

As a gay bodyguard, Rocky got a chance to really flex his muscles as someone who likes 70's style clothes and wanted to be famous.

I watched this movie for John Travolta, but I liked it because of The Rock. Vince Vaughn, on the other hand, almost made me leave the theater.

"Swingers was 16 years ago; find a new gimmick!"

Gridiron Gang

One of the only truly dramatic roles the Rock took was another true story. This time he played a football coach at a detention center for troubled youths.

The film shows the more serious side of Johnson as he tries to help show these kids that it doesn't matter if society thinks of you one way; you can be another.

It also shows some of the harsh reality of inner-city gang life, as one of the main characters in the film is shot during a game by a rival gang member, but saved by someone who belonged to the gunman's gang.

While the film was overlooked for awards, it certainly gave Johnson some more credit in Hollywood as a real actor, as he was nominated for a few awards.

The movie is a great and inspiring tale which is a good watch if you have two hours of free time.

Southland Tales

Go ahead and disagree with me, but this is by far one of Rocky's best films. This movie is often criticized for being impossible to understand and being so artsy that the plot took a back seat to the strangeness of it all.

I don't care, this film was great. It had literally everything I could have asked for in a movie, and being a fan of Donnie Darko, I was willing to see anything from the director.

I know that most people can't put this film into words, but if I told you that a movie existed with The Rock as an amnesiac, time traveling film star sleeping with a porn star/screen writer, Jon Lovitz as a corrupt cop, a blimp full of terrorists and Mandy Moore, a floating ice cream truck full of weapons, Justin Timberlake as a soldier who was injured by explosives, the original Highlander as a street thug who sells guns to anyone with cash and Sean William Scott in his only serious role(s) as someone who is copied in time, you can't tell me you wouldn't be interested.

The film does not make sense in its entirety, but it is not supposed to. Sometimes a film is made simply to be strange.

Best line from The Rock: "I'm a Pimp, and Pimps don't commit suicide."

The Other Guys

I know the Rock was not in this movie the entire time, but his short role was easily his most humorous.

As a pair of way-too-cocky police officers, The Rock and Samuel L. Jackson were amazing. Together, they stole the first half of the movie by being in a ridiculously over-the-top car chase, a hilarious post-arrest meeting and a death scene which will stand the test of time as being hilarious.

This film was not as great as I had hoped, and I can't help but think it would have been so much better had Rocky been in it throughout the entire 90 minutes.

The End

Thanks for reading and feel free to share your ranking system for Rocky's movies below. I will leave you with this bonus, a clip of The Rock in That 70's Show playing his own father, WWE Hall of Famer Rocky Johnson.

Also, if you have a moment please check out my article Two Sides to every Coin: Are pro athletes overpaid?