The Marine 4: Moving Target

Over-muscled one man army. Check. Escorting witness to testify. Check. Betrayal by an insider for illogical reasons. Check. Pretty but annoying airhead female witness whose actions make life harder on the one man army protecting her. Check. Special forces bad guys who learned marksmanship from Imperial Stormtroopers. Check. Good guy wins, bad guys die. Check.

Four stars for something to watch.

As an U.S. NAVY Sailor I shouldn't like Jar-heads (Stupid military tradition) but this movie is definitely an insult to Marines an all military in general. The poor acting can be questionable even by anyone who's never been in the military. Watching the first minutes of the movie let you see how predictable is going to be, and you wont be disappointed on that appreciation as you expect to be surprise thru the rest of the movie and it just keep getting more and more predictable. Hand-to-hand fights seen so fake that no even the drunkest highly trained marine would ever act like that. Mercenaries would even complained about this movie as they see how the ones in the movie hit the ground and trees 99% of the time while shooting. It just reminded me of the "The A-Team" TV Series. Any ex-military with no acting experience would have given this movie a way better "feeling."

OK, granted I love shoot em up movies for the mindless entertainment on rainy days curled up with popcorn and no expectations for great performances. But this is a waste of talent and nothing more than proving script writers without talent can ruin an actor's career.. The Miz, a better actor than this movie deserves, struggles with the poor plot and Summer, well I am not sure why she is even in this movie other than to mumble a few lines. I would have refused the role as it is a career buster and not career enhancer. She could have had a real role other than jumping into and out of scenes cocking a gun. I am a WWE fan and have seen what good movie scripts and talented wrestlers can do together. This is not one of them. Sorry, no spoiler as the movie is so predictable and lame, it gives itself away. I hope Miz and Summer ( I am a huge fan of both ) find better movie opportunities despite their contract obligations to appear in such trash.

Audiences should be aware that The Marine 4 is the epitome of B-movie, it has a simple premise and is designed to entertain with least amount of effort. To its credit, the movie does serve that purpose. It offers lots of shooting spree as well as decently choreography melee combat, even though some of its logic are admittedly flawed and the protagonists wear magical plot armors.

Jake Carter (Mike Mizanin or The Miz) is starting a new job as a security guard for high value target, a whistle-blower by the name of Olivia Tanis (Melissa Roxburgh). Soon he realizes that the implication Olivia could do is far reaching, and he must do his best to keep her safe. Acting from The Miz is surprisingly good. He's a pretty suitable lead, creating the disheartened veteran persona well. This is better than most exaggerated roles of action genre, although he does look a bit confused at times.

Matthew MacCaull as the antagonist is above the rest. He presents a conniving personality that presentably irritating. Melissa Roxburgh as the female lead however, is distinctly bad. Her character is supposed to be a brash woman with brave attitude, but it turns out to be an annoying and highly unsympathetic bickering damsel. The rest of cast is your typical mercenaries. Summer Rae makes an appearance as well, while she has so few lines, she does look the part of fit femme fatale.

Plot and action are severely unrealistic. People are shooting for half of the movie, it's not even a hyperbole. Scenes are basically Jake and random mercs spraying bullets at each other, without the need of reloading and unsurprisingly Jake has far better accuracy. The fisticuffs are marginally better as the fights are choreographed with good impact.

The Marine 4 is, as expected, ninety minutes of mindless shooting and punching, nothing more. It's not Bourne, but it will do for mindless fun.

"Do you trust me now?" Jake Carter (Mizanin) is a marine who is charged with protecting Olilvia Tanis (Roxburgh), a high profile whistle blower who has numerous death threats against her. When someone in Jake's organization is revealed to be a traitor he has to not only fight off the traitor but also keep Olivia safe so she can testify. This is a movie that is pretty much what you expect. An hour and a half of stuff blowing up and violence with a little plot. The main problem with these movies is that there is really no suspense. When you get to the fourth movie in a series you pretty much can predict how it will go from the beginning. This is no exception. On the other hand though, I have seen much worse direct to DVD sequels and this one was at least entertaining enough to keep me awake. Overall, another unnecessary sequel, but one that is at least watchable. I have seen, and expected, much worse. I give this a B-.