A crew of rugged firefighters meet their match when attempting to rescue three rambunctious kids.
John Cena has come a long way since his first appearance as a wrestler with the WWE in 2002. While he is still with that organization, he is also an actor and has appeared in a variety of successful films including “The Marine,” “12 Rounds,” “Daddy’s Home 2,” “Blockers,” “Bumblebee,” and even did voice acting on “Ferdinand” and Robert Downey Jr’s most recent “Dolittle.” He has been called a pumped-up Matt Damon and while he doesn’t have the acting chops of Mr. Damon, he most certainly has plenty of on-screen charisma, a very important element if you want to succeed in the movie business, among other things.
I think it must be an unwritten rule that any actor, or wrestler, that makes it big in the film industry as an action star, must make a kid-friendly movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger did “Kindergarten Cop,” Dwayne Johnson did “The Tooth Fairy,” Vin Diesel did “The Pacifier,” and now John Cena has done “Playing with Fire.” While these are not bad films, in the least, they are simply intended for younger audiences. And “Playing with Fire” is a by-the-numbers movie about the importance of family and friendship.
Cena plays Superintendent Jake Carson, the commanding officer of a group of smokejumpers, specially trained wildland firefighters who lead the initial attack on wildfires by parachuting into the flames before they can spread. Carson is in charge of his team which is comprised of Mark Rogers (Keegan-Michael Key), Rodrigo Torres (John Leguizamo), and “Axe” (Tyler Mane). When they are called to a burning cabin in the middle of the woods not too far from their workplace, Carson rescues three children, Brynn (Brianna Hildebrand), Will (Christian Convery), and Zoey (Finley Rose Slater). Brynn, the eldest, informs them that their parents are out of town and will be back on Monday and Carson calls their mother’s phone, only to receive her voicemail, where he proceeds to leave her a message, informing her of the situation.
As the weekend rolls by, the three children cause all sorts of havoc, forcing the straightlaced Carson and his team to emerge from their comfort zones and come down to their levels, bonding with them as they go. Naturally, the kids burrow underneath the smokejumpers’ thick and stubborn skins until Carson discovers that the three children are orphans, who escaped from foster care and have been on the run ever since. CPS turns up to take them away only for Carson to inform them that under the “Safe Haven Law,” which requires law enforcement and/or first responders to protect the kids until they are released to a parent or guardian, he will keep them with him until he can legally adopt them.
“Playing with Fire” offers nothing new to the family genre, you can see the ending coming a mile away from the very beginning but watching John Cena, Keegan-Michael Key, John Leguizamo, and Tyler Mane turn into big kids, is totally worth it. There is nothing offensive in the film, and it just serves as a reminder that no matter what a person looks like on the outside, you never know what they could be going through on the inside. If you have young kids, they’ll enjoy this, the older ones, probably not so much.
Now available on Digital and on Blu-ray, DVD, and On-Demand February 4th
