Now available on Amazon Prime Video are two testosterone-soaked action movies with muscle-bound heroes: the boxing drama “Southpaw” with Jake Gyllenhaal and the sandal fantasy film “The Scorpion King” with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
Sometimes there are amusing coincidences in the offerings of streaming services: On Amazon Prime Video you can now stream two films that are reminiscent of the most iconic roles of the 80s action heroes Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, except that they star two contemporary film stars: “Southpaw” with Jake Gyllenhaal and “The Scorpion King” with Dwayne Johnson.
“Southpaw” is a boxing drama and its premise and dramaturgy are very reminiscent of the “Rocky” series: at its centre is the boxer Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal), who grew up in poor circumstances but worked his way up to fame and fortune together with his wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams). But then Billy suffers a family tragedy and loses everything, so he has to fight his way back with the help of gnarly boxing coach Tick Wills (Forest Whitaker)…
FILMSTARTS gave “Southpaw” a good 3.5 out of 5 stars, which is less due to the script by Kurt Sutter (“Sons Of Anarchy”), which hardly leaves out a (boxing movie) cliché, but rather to the powerful staging by Antoine Fuqua (“Training Day”) and the rousing performance by Jake Gyllenhaal in the leading role.
ALSO NEW: “THE SCORPION KING” STARRING DWAYNE JOHNSO
Also, Dwayne Johnson is now walking in the footsteps of Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Sword And Sorcery classic “Conan – The Barbarian” on Amazon Prime Video. “The Scorpion King” doesn’t come close to the class of its great role model, but is still worth seeing for fantasy fans:
“The Scorpion King” is on paper a prequel to “The Mummy Returns”, in which Dwayne Johnson appeared for the first time and in legendarily bad CGI quality as the Scorpion King, but it doesn’t really have much to do with that. Instead, it tells how the warrior Mathayus (Johnson) wants to take revenge on the evil King Memnon (Steven Brand), meets a mysterious sorceress (Kelly Hu) and eventually leads a rebellion…
The conclusion of our FILMSTARTS review (2.5 out of 5 stars) says: “‘The Scorpion King’ is nothing more than a brightly coloured, cheerful and quickly digested film soap bubble, just as pointless as it is lowbrow, but equally without risks and annoying side effects.” I guess that sums it up pretty well…
