John Cena In Legendary: Not As Terrible As Expected... and Actually Quite Good

I'm not a massive follower of WWE Films, I seen See No Evil and The Condemned but skipped John Cena's first few and had no interest in The Marine 2. But with the wrestling story in Legendary I decided I'd sit down and watch the film. I was pleasantly surprised. Please note, there are no spoilers here, the only story of the film I talk about is what is seen in the (multiple) trailers that have been shown each week on WWE programming.

It begins with geeky looking teenager Cal Chetley (played by Devon Graye - you may recognize him from Dexter, he plays Dexter in flashback scenes) being bullied by a group of kids and obviously then in an attempt to seek revenge he decides to take up wrestling.

We learn that both his older brother Mike (John Cena) and father were very successful wrestlers in their day, however he has only seen his brother a handful of times over the past 8 years since their father's death.

Mike left Cal and their Mother Sharon (Patricia Clarkson) following the passing of their Dad and struggles to hold down a job, living in a trailer park wants nothing to do with Cal and couldn't be less interested in his younger brothers decision to follow in his footsteps to become a wrestler.

The difference between Mike and Cal is, Mike is, as Sharon says: "built like a car" and Cal is only a mere 135 pounds, he only makes it onto the wrestling team as there is nobody else in that weight category and following a quick defeat in his first match he again seeks the help of Mike, this time he succeeds and the two train every single day.

Mike teaches Cal every aspect of his game, quickness, agility, psychology and eventually Cal begins winning matches and climbing the rankings. However, when it comes to the State tournament, Sharon finds out Cal has been visiting his brother and tells him to stay away, Mike gets into trouble and lands himself in jail and Cal is left alone heading into the State semi-finals…

Cena, doesn't go into his over excited promo mode once in the film which was unexpected, I was also surprised to see how limited John Cena's part was he features in the film enough to be a main part but he is definitely not the main character and there is not enough here to judge his acting talents, however Clarkson and Graye are great in the Mother-Teenage Son combination as is Danny Glover in his role as Cal's fishing companion.

The story isn't too strong here but I don't think that should affect the film greatly as it was still an enjoyable watch and it was funny to see John Cena play a character who was an All-American amateur wrestler from Oklahoma (sound like a certain Smackdown Superstar?) and teaching someone to wrestle, but as I said it was a limited acting role for Cena and it worked as he was believable in his role and I'm interested for future WWE Studio releases and with John Cena signed up to star in another one of their films (Blood Brother, release date TBC) I think he will eventually break into main Hollywood and follow the Rock and Stone Cold in starring in major blockbusters, as long as he sticks to roles like this that don't demand so much from him.

The DVD contains only a few extras, a feature on Devon Graye learning to wrestling, John Cena's teaching a bloopers reel. Still, worth the price and I'd recommend a wrestling fan buy this, maybe it's too early to crack the rest of the world yet.