Movie Review - The Main Event (2020)

This is the latest film from WWE Studios. WWE Studios is the movie production arm of the famous TV wrestling enterprise. WWE Studios has produced over 50 films, since it started in 2002. The majority of those films have been vehicles for the various wrestlers who are popular, often to boost their profiles. Its first film was The Scorpion King (2002), starring Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock. That 2002 blockbuster stands as the most successful film in its 18-year history. Johnson remains its most successful star. The only other star to achieve mainstream status is John Cena. Other wrestlers who have been pushed include Randy Orton and Michael Mizanin aka The Miz. Other wrestlers don't prove to have the charisma or acting talent to achieve the same acclaim as Johnson or Cena.

Most of the films that WWE Studios produces are straight-to-video that seemed more for true or even hardcore fans of wrestlers. It would make sense that those films are tailored to those fans or people who either love WWE and its wrestlers. Many of WWE's films have been rather dumb action flicks. Some have been in other genres though. There's also a sliver of films from the company that have nothing to do with any wrestlers or feature any of WWE's so-called stars. With the exception of a couple, the best films from WWE Studios have been those films that are removed from the WWE fandom. Some of those include Oculus (2014) and Sleight (2017). I would even throw Birth of the Dragon (2017) into that category, even that it wasn't critically well-received. This film, however, is one that I wouldn't put into that category.

Seth Carr (Black Panther and Breaking In) stars as Leo Thompson, an 11-year-old, black child, living with his single father and grandmother. What's interesting is that his father is a white man and no issue is made of that difference. Despite missing his mother, his most distinguishing trait is that he is a huge fan of the WWE. His bedroom looks like a shrine to the WWE. It's filled and adorned, top-to-bottom, with memorabilia for WWE. Leo is obsessed with that TV franchise. He knows every wrestler and everything about it.

It's clear that Leo's fandom is not much more than propaganda for WWE. Yes, this is a film aimed at children, those under the age of 13, but the dialogue and commentary about the WWE is way over the top and ridiculous. Leo's exuberance and almost obsession are one thing, but his grandmother's exuberance about the WWE puts it even more over-the-top.

Tichina Arnold (The Neighborhood and Everybody Hates Chris) co-stars as Denise, Leo's grandmother. At first, one thinks that she's his mother. Arnold is a woman in her 50's, so her role is appropriate, but she does not look like anybody's grandmother. She looks like she could still be in her late 30's. Her energy and interactions certainly don't lend her to be anybody's grandmother either. She watches WWE but only to lust after the young, hot wrestlers. I don't even think it was necessary for Arnold to play the grandmother. She could've just been his mother and that would have been fine.

Unfortunately, the film devotes time to this subplot about Leo's actual mother having abandoned him. I don't really see the point of this plot line. Leo only asks about his mother once. We never even see a picture of his mother that Leo or anyone has. Leo's absent mother feels less like an issue for him, as it is for his father.

Adam Pally (Sonic the Hedgehog and Happy Endings) also co-stars as Steve, Leo's dad. Steve has been on a bit of a tailspin ever since Leo's mother, Rachel, left. She hasn't returned, not even to visit her son. Steve has resorted to living with Denise who is Rachel's mother, so that she can help him raise Leo. However, Steve is paralyzed on how to talk to Leo about Rachel's absence. He works as a ride-share driver and in his spare time he's a mechanic fixing up a car in the driveway. Yet, his main issue is his paralysis about talking about Rachel's absence. It's an interesting angle for Pally to play and he gets some good dramatic and even comedic moments out of playing this quasi-estranged and anxious dad.

None of his stuff really matters because the real thrust of this film is the fact that it's in a sense a super-hero film. The film itself references Spider-Man and in a sense that's what Leo becomes. In Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (2002), a teenage boy gets bitten by a radioactive insect and all of sudden gets incredible powers like super-strength. He then uses that strength to enter a fighting match. That's essentially what happens to Leo. Instead of a radioactive spider, Leo finds a magical, wrestling mask. When Leo puts on the mask, he's given the powers. When he takes the mask off, Leo reverts back to his normal self.

It's a little like Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) who gets not only a mask but a full-body suit that's seemingly magical but really just high-technology. Yet, the comparison that immediately popped to mind was Jim Carrey in The Mask (1994). In that 1994 flick, Carrey's character would put on a magical mask and not only be given super-powers but also a very crazy and comical personality that contrasted to the one he had before. It's the same for Leo. Without the mask, he's a shy, dorky kid, but, with the mask, he's a smooth, suave and confident man. It's a personality shift that Carr as a young actor handles rather well, but the script doesn't do enough with that personality shift to make it compelling.

People who turn on this film will most likely do so to see the wrestling matches. Going back to my comparison to the 2002 film by Raimi, Leo enters fighting matches, put on by the WWE and hosted by The Miz. Leo wears the mask and uses his powers to win, basically beating up WWE wrestlers twice his size who are so because they're grown men in their 20's, 30's or older and because they're guys who spent a lot of time in the gym and are big, buff dudes. Watching Leo as a scrawny little kid beat them up is what will probably draw fans of WWE. Yet, the choreography and special effects for the matches are rather lame.

Ten years ago, WWE Studios released a film called Legendary (2010), which is now streaming on Hulu. Legendary was about a teenage boy, around 16 or so, who became a high school wrestler, not with powers, just a regular, high school wrestler. Legendary though featured more thrilling matches than anything here. The matches here are meant to be cartoon-like. Yet, because they're not well choreographed, the cartoon nature of them don't do much to excite either. This is one of the few films from WWE Studios to be about WWE. It doesn't excite or engage, not like Fighting With My Family (2019), which is another film from WWE Studios that certainly isn't aimed at children under 13 but works in ways that this film won't.

Rated TV-G.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 43 mins.

Available on Netflix.