The Smashing Machine Has A Great Rock Performance But No Story & Other Reviews

Daniele Cifala'. Shutterstock Images.

The Smashing Machine is a case where Benny Safdie the screenwriter did Benny Safdie the director no favors. Below is the review of that movie along with Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party Of A Showgirl, Gabby's Dollhouse: The Movie, Good Boy and a bonus review of the streaming Mark Wahlberg movie Play Dirty.

The Smashing Machine is a movie that has the right ingredients (great performances, well shot) but the final result is a pretty bland meal.

The story of Mark Kerr just didn’t feel strong enough to be a movie. Not enough happens either to or around him. A dysfunctional relationship, substance abuse and the UFC should be enough…but it all felt hollow to me. The last title cards makes me wonder why any of what we saw matters at all.

Dwayne Johnson is excellent here and shows that if he wants to keep doing dramas, we already knew he could be an exciting actor, now he can be a compelling one too.

Emily Blunt is also strong and I loved some of what Benny Safdie did (especially with the fight scenes). I just wish we got a story to complete the recipe.

THE SMASHING MACHINE: B-

Play Dirty is not funny enough to be a comedy and not exciting enough to be an action movie. It’s also a loud slog that makes you feel every second of its 128 minute run time.

It’s intentionally stupid which is always frustrating but even moreso when talented people are involved. Shane Black directed The Nice Guys, which was fantastic. Mark Wahlberg gave a very good performance just this year in Flight Risk. This was a half-assed effort by both.

This is another example of a streaming movie that is meant to be best enjoyed while playing on your phone and barely paying attention. I don’t watch movies like that. I like to shut the lights off and really focus on the world being presented to me. But with each passing year, I wonder if that makes me a dying breed.

If this is the future of mainstream movies, that’s a one hell of a dystopian prospect.

PLAY DIRTY: D

The Official Release Party Of A Showgirl is a frustrating movie experience because it could have easily been much better.

This is obviously built to allow Taylor Swift fans to enjoy the new album together. I like Swift’s music and the idea itself is a good one. The execution just wasn’t ideal.

Most of this runtime is dedicated to playing lyric videos for the songs on the album. Each song has a minute or so explanation from Swift. Sometimes, she gives really interesting and relatable reasons for the songs. Other times (like Father Figure for example), she’s not being open about who the song is about making me question what the point of this is.

For some reason, the lyric videos are accompanied by a 20 second video clip which keeps repeating. Taylor Swift blows a kiss to the audience no less than 25 times that is 3 versions of the same kiss. It feels like the background to a karaoke video.

She’s a fascinating performer and person. I just wish there was more behind the scenes of making the album and what each song truly means.

THE OFFICAL RELEASE PARTY OF A SHOWGIRL: C

Good Boy is a solid scary movie that I might just love dogs too much to fully enjoy. It’s a haunted house story told from the prospective of a dog.

The story is really secondary to the dog’s feelings throughout. This is rated PG-13 so it’s not a situation like Bring Her Back where the gore is off-putting but instead more how helpless dogs are.

A lot of people, including myself, get more upset when a dog gets hurt or dies on screen than when a human does. I think a big reason why is how vulnerable dogs are. They depend on us for so much and have been literally bred for centuries to love us. To hurt a dog is a special level of evil.

I would have enjoyed this movie a lot more in my 20’s before I had dogs of my own. Instead, watching it now was just too upsetting.

GOOD BOY: B-

There has to be better options for your kids than Gabby’s Dollhouse. This is brightly colored nonsense that relies on people not caring if this is good just because it’s a kid’s movie. It’s crazy that people think it’s a valid excuse to give the youngest and most impressionable demographic the worst possible product.

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This “movie” tells the story of Gabby (who acts like she is 8 yet is played by a 17 year old)  whose grandmother (Gloria Estefan) builds her a magical doll house that she can transport herself in to play with the toys there. Kristen Wiig steals the dollhouse. That’s pretty much the story. There is some discussion if people are too old to play with the dollhouse.

This is empty and stupid. It’s the cotton candy of movies. Colorful and empty. That might even be disrespectful to cotton candy. I get that parents need to use the TV as a babysitter sometimes. Pop anything else on.

GABBY'S DOLLHOUSE: D

Below is my ranking for all 2025 movies I've seen in theaters but if you love movies, please check out Project Big Screen. It's a new movie review and ranking show with myself, Kirk Minihane, Jeff D. Lowe, Kenjac and Gooch. We'll be putting these out every week.

2025 

1)Sinners

2)Weapons

3)One Battle After Another

4)Caught Stealing

5)The Long Walk

6)Presence

7)The Life Of Chuck

8)Black Bag

9)The Ballad Of Wallis Island

10)Warfare

11)Friendship

12)Superman

13)Mission Impossible 8

14)28 Years Later

15)Novocaine

16)Fantastic Four

17)The Naked Gun

18)Final Destination 6

19)The Amateur

20)Drop

21)Dangerous Animals

22)Together

23)Death Of A Unicorn

24)The Accountant 2

25)The Damned

26)One Of Them Days

27)Materialists

28)Lilo & Stitch

29)Paddington 3

30)Thunderbolts

31)F1

32)THE SMASHING MACHINE

33)Clown In A Cornfield

34)Bring Her Back

35)Hell Of A Summer

36)Karate Kid 6

37)GOOD BOY

38)Downton Abbey 3

39)Fight Or Flight

40)Valiant One

41)Sketch

42)The Roses

43)How To Train Your Dragon

44)Elio

45)Rule Breakers

46)Heart Eyes

47)The Conjuring 4

48)Mickey17

49)The Surfer

50)Relay

51)Last Breath

52)Flight Risk

53)Minecraft

54)Den Of Thieves 2

55)Dogman

56)Companion

57)Eddington

58)Jurassic World Rebirth

59)The Senior

60)KPop Demon Hunters

61)Spinal Tap 2

62)The Toxic Avenger

63)Ballerina

64)A Working Man

65)The Last Rodeo

66)TAYLOR SWIFT: RELEASE PARTY OF A SHOWGIRL

67)Shadow Force

68)The Alto Knights

69)Honey Don’t

70)The Bad Guys 2

71)The Penguin Lessons

72)The Chosen Part 2

73)Looney Tunes

74)Opus

75)M3GAN 2

76)Becoming Led Zeppelin

77)Captain America: BNW

78)I Know What You Did Last Summer

79)Until Dawn

80)Ne Zha 2

81)The Chosen Part 1

82)Riff Raff

83)The Home

84)Freakier Friday

85)Inheritance

86)Nobody 2

87)The Chosen Part 3

88)The Wedding Banquet

89)Smurfs

90)The Legend Of Ochi

91)Night Of The Zoopocalypse

92)Demon Slayer

93)The Phoenician Scheme

94)Sneaks

95)Ash

96)Jujutsu Kaisen

97)The King Of Kings

98)The Friend

99)Dan Da Dan 2

100)Light Of The World

101)Snow White

102)The Unbreakable Boy

103)GABBY'S DOLLHOUSE

104)Brave The Dark

105)Wolf Man

106)Hurry Up Tomorrow

107)The Monkey

108)Love Hurts

109)Him

110)The Last Supper

111)Woman In The Yard

112)Bride Hard

113)Juliet & Romeo

114)In The Lost Lands