A couple of decades ago, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson made the career switch from the pretend world of pro wrestling to the pretend world of Hollywood. Since then, he’s carved out a decent acting career, mostly as big, likeable and muscular goofballs in action comedies. Watching him was certainly preferable to the tiresome self-seriousness of Sly, Arnie or Jean-Paul Wham-Bam. But no one ever described him as “disappearing into the role.”

Until now. Here, in a vast departure from stereotype, he plays Mixed Martial Arts pioneer Mark Kerr during the early years of the blood sport from 1997 to 2000. (A lot of the action seems to take place in Japan.)

Not enough can be said about the Oscar-nominated prosthetics work by Glen Griffin that helped immeasurably in the above-mentioned disappearance. Johnson is virtually unrecognizable. Emily Blunt expertly fleshes out the underwritten role of the guy’s long-suffering girlfriend Dawn, and Ryan Bader is perfect as his corner man and prospective opponent.

Amazingly, the movie avoids feeling fake. But the pacing is glacial, the storyline is thin, depicting as it does the true story of Kerr’s rise, his steroid and opioid addiction and his eventual revival. Fidelity to reality is fine, but it can be a picture-killer. We’ve seen this all before, in better movies. The guy was just not that interesting, and the movie fails to convince us that it merited a feature film.

This is Johnson’s most layered, most sincere and vulnerable attempt at actually acting, and for some it’s an historic cinematic must-see. But, and this is my personal take on it, I find it difficult to recommend for its reliance on violence. Yes, I get it that it was necessary to establish MMA as a tough “sport,” but it’s basically punching and/or kneeing people in the head. Some people find that entertaining, I guess. But it’s presented here – over and over and over — with more than a hint of sadism. (123 min)

Out in theatres now