Dwayne Johnson stars Mark Kerr in “The Smashing Machine” (Photo Credit: A24 Films)
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(“The Smashing Machine” trailer courtesy of A24)
I would like to sincerely apologize to movie star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson for any past movie reviews in which I doubted his acting skills.
Yes, I called him a movie star, not a thespian, because that is what I thought of him before watching “The Smashing Machine,” which is by far the best acting performance of his career.
The best actors do not always smash records at the box office.
But movie stars like Johnson often do.
While “The Smashing Machine” might not break records at the box office, it just might be the movie that punches Johnson’s ticket to the 2026 Academy Awards as a nominee for Best Actor.
And although “The Smashing Machine” suffers from an anticlimactic ending, it might be the artistic climax of The Rock’s lucrative career.
In 2025, mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters are among the most recognizable figures in sports, thanks to legends like Jon “Bones” Jones and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson.
However, those who laid the foundation for others to make millions often did it for the love of the sport, not the fame and wealth.
Every sports league goes through its growing pains, and in the late 1990s and early 2000s, MMA leagues like the UFC and Pride were not immune to the struggle.
Thankfully, a struggle is not a problem for wrestler-turned-MMA-fighter Mark Kerr (Johnson) because anyone who will willingly get their face punched in by an opponent is not scared of a few trials and tribulations.
In “The Smashing Machine,” Kerr makes a name for himself as an unbeatable professional wrestler, and not the kind of “wrestler” who pretends to fight their opponent in one of those fake entertainment wrestling operations.
Kerr is a true fighter, destroying all competition, even going back to his days as a college wrestler.
Therefore, when MMA leagues begin to pop up offering nice wages, Kerr signs up and continues his success.
The only thing different from a wrestling cage and an MMA cage is that the latter is shaped like an octagon.
MMA is a brutal combat sport that combines the disciplines of boxing, wrestling and various martial arts to determine who is the ultimate fighter.
In “The Smashing Machine,” Mark immediately develops a large and adoring fanbase.
He has a beautiful home in Arizona.
Kerr has a loving girlfriend named Dawn Stapes (Emily Blunt), who is extremely active in his personal and professional life.
The couple even drives the flashiest luxury cars on the market.
But that type of success does not make one immune to the pressures and stresses of maintaining success and one’s positive image when in the public eye.
Add to the fact that MMA is beyond brutal and many of the sport’s stars, like Kerr, have access to the strongest painkillers and performance-enhancing drugs, and one might have a recipe for disaster, or at least a couple of volatile explosions.
When Kerr begins abusing opioids, it tests his relationship, friendships, and professional future because one of MMA’s first superstars might self-implode before the sport really takes off.
More importantly, will the volatility that the opioids produce make him a person that he does not even recognize himself?
Although Kerr is brutal in the ring and octagon, he is a teddy bear outside of the ring.
He often complains about his weak tummy, even refusing to get on a rollercoaster with Dawn at an amusement park.
The question in “The Smashing Machine” is whether Kerr can stay true to who he is inside and outside of the ring, while dealing with all the obstacles coming his way, some self-induced and some out of his control.
Other than a couple of dull moments when Kerr is trying to get the drugs he needs from a pharmacy, “The Smashing Machine” gets practically everything right.
The fighting scenes from around 1997 resemble those of the late 1990s, with their VHS/analog quality.
Even the fashion in “The Smashing Machine” is a smashing success, down to Kerr’s fly Nautica sweatshirt.
“The Smashing Machine” even captures MMA as it transforms from a sport with very few rules to something more commercially pleasing to the eye, with more rules.
Unfortunately, some of the new rules might hurt Ker because of his wrestling background and lack of skills in boxing and jiu-jitsu.
During its growth, the UFC became popular because of its emphasis on knockouts, something that had been missing in boxing for several years.
If MMA encouraged more of a ground game, which is Kerr’s strength, it would not reach the heights that it wanted to reach.
Well, MMA did reach the heights that the sport wanted.
But did Kerr?
Regardless, Johnson reaches his apex with his performance as Kerr.
In the early half of “The Smashing Machine,” Johnson is almost unrecognizable.
He begins looking more like himself as the movie progresses and Kerr’s style changes.
But the attention to detail is what really stands out in “The Smashing Machine.”
Filmmaker Benny Safdie even gets the cauliflower ears, which are common with MMA fighters, correct.
Although the ending is a bit anticlimactic and underwhelming, it is still compelling because it ends in a “The Pursuit of Happyness” kind of way as the real-life protagonist gets some screen time.
Thankfully, Johnson’s stellar performance more than compensates for the bad ending, as the movie is just the beginning of him receiving the critical acclaim that has alluded him, at least from me and RegalMag.com.
REGAL RATINGS
FOUR CROWNS=EXCELLENT
THREE CROWNS=GOOD
TWO CROWNS=AVERAGE
ONE CROWN=POOR
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