Playing with Fire: Cena tries yet again to become the next "Rock" in films

...and he fails miserably, yet again. I genuinely like Jon Cena and from what I have seen he appears to be an all-around pretty great guy. I just don't think the whole film thing is going to happen for him and it isn't necessarily his fault. The problem with Playing with Fire is that it is just a really stupid concept for a film and while it is definitely meant for a child audience, I can't really imagine it working for that demographic either. This film is, plain and simple, really stupid.

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The good news for Cena is that this film turned a pretty fantastic profit. The bad news is the other, more gritty films that he has been in either completely flopped or he played only a minor role.

I'll briefly tell the story behind this turd of a film.

Cena plays the role of Jake or "Supe" and he is known as that because he is the supervisor of an elite "smoke jumpers" squad that airlifts into forest fires to perform rescue missions. This is a real group of people and yeah, they are rare and I am quite sure they do some pretty amazing stuff.

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What the actual smoke jumpers do is probably extremely dangerous and definitely worth admiring, but "Supe" and his crew perform these tasks in a whimsical way that is almost certainly because the film is produced by Nickelodeon and they have to seriously tone down the violence in order to get their PG or G rating, whatever it was. It doesn't matter, this is a kids film

The film doesn't actually focus a great deal on fire-fighting but instead ends up being a family movie about how Supe and his crew initially don't want this group of orphans staying in their base station but just as you can predict as soon as it happens, the crew eventually comes around and grows to love them.

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They basically tick all the boxes in a "feel-good" family movie category.

• Seemingly rebellious teenager who turns around by the end? check
• 6 year old (or so) that is much smarter than a 6 year old should be? Check!
• Very young child who wears diapers so they can have poo jokes? Check!
• A dog that doesn't like outsiders but takes to the kids right away? Check!
• A very gruff firefighter that never talks but reveals his true softie side in falls in love with the kids? Check!
• An innocent and budding romance that the kids help to make happen for the main character? Check!

There is also the fact that the kids are in fact orphans that aren't just waiting for their parents to come back from vacation and now Cena and the rest of the crew must fight for custody of them and of course this works out for them even though the actual process of adoption is an extremely complicated situation.... but i suppose we don't need to let the mostly child audience be aware of this.

I can't really see this film through the eyes of a child because I am not one. I only watched the film because I would really like to see Cena succeed. However, I think that even Jon himself realizes that he is not going to get serious roles and there really isn't room for another action star in Hollywood at the moment. The Rock and Jason Statham have cornered the market on that.

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They use music to try to get at your emotions but the entire thing is just too far fetched for me to feel anything about these situations other than disdain. Kids must have liked the film and forced their parents to take them to go see it because it ended up making nearly $40 million in profit. This is a blessing and a curse for Cena because he is likely going to be subjected to more roles exactly like this since all of his other projects haven't really worked out for him.

Should I watch it?

If you have small kids that will laugh at anything slapstick then yes, maybe. But you need to realize that this will be for their benefit, not your own. I would actually be very interested to see what kids have to say about this movie because I think that for anyone over 12 years old this one is going to be a hard pass.

_{I intentionally didn't include a trailer because it really isn't worth your time unless you are a 5-year old}