2) The Scorpion King, The Mummy Returns/The Scorpion King
The Rockest performance that catapulted the Rock from “that guy who does acting in between wrestling matches” to Leading Man material. Was The Scorpion King franchise good? Debatable. Was the Rock’s performance good? Also, debatable. Was it memorable? Absolutely. He fought, screamed, transformed, flailed around, and did the most he could with that script. He gave it his all, and everyone had to respect the dedication. This is one of the most Rock performances of his life, when he was allowed to be a bad guy and be very good at it. After this film he took steps to curate his “good guy, big muscles’”image a little more, but we love a villain, and we truly appreciate his anti-hero role in this series far more than the snarky but lovable persona he cultivated in later action films.
