Director: Paul Feig
Writer: Rob Yescombe
Stars: John Cena, Awkwafina, Simu Liu
Synopsis: In the near future, a ‘Grand Lottery’ has been newly established in California – the catch: kill the winner before sundown to legally claim their multi-billion dollar jackpot.
Hello everyone, it’s time. Yes, we need to talk about John Cena. The last ten films in his filmography are a cry for help. And no, I refuse to credit him for the cameos in Barbie and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Mr. Cena’s last nine films are so bad I haven’t seen a career this mismanaged and sabotaged since Ben Falcone ruined Melissa McCarthy’s once-stellar comic career.
Just look at some of the jaw-droppingly bad films that John Cena has led since playing Peacemaker in the well-received The Suicide Squad. His “movie star” roles include Vacation Friends, The Independent, Fast X, Hidden Strike, Vacation Friends 2, Freelance, Argyle, Ricky Stanicky, Die Hart 2: Die Harter (yes, I threw that in), and now Jackpot!—another misfire and what may be the final nail in the coffin of Cena’s once-promising action/comedy career.
Remember John Cena’s lovable, sweet, funny, and endearing turn in Blockers? Or his charisma and appeal in Bumblebee? The willingness to take comedic risks in cameos, like in Trainwreck? Or just picking good roles in good movies, like the gripping Doug Liman film The Wall? No? That’s okay. Most people have short memories. This brings me to my point: If Mr. Cena doesn’t start to pick his projects more carefully, he will have no one to blame but himself—and certainly not Ben Falcone.
And that’s not to say Cena is bad in Jackpot!—almost everyone is—but he is undoubtedly the best part of this poorly conceived streaming comedic spin on The Purge. He plays Noel, a warm-hearted former mercenary with a heart of gold, helping out Katie (Awkwafina), a former child star picked for the “Grand Lottery,” a new California cash grab where you can win billions. The only catch?
Katie has to survive the night until sundown. What’s that, you say? Anyone who kills her—using anything allowed besides a bullet from a firearm—will receive the multi-billion dollar cash prize. If she survives, the money will be hers, and she can live out her dreams. All Katie has to do is hand over 10% of her winnings to Cena’s Noel, an amateur lottery protection agent, who agrees to keep her alive until they can become richer beyond their wildest imaginations.
You know how they say another man’s trash is another man’s treasure? Well, director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids), working from a script from Rob Yescombe (Netflix’s Outside the Wire), proves the one’s treasure is the audience’s crumpled up fast food wrappers. Jackpot! is the sort of interesting film premise that turns into a gutless comedy with no conviction. As soon as the word is out Katie is the target, her “fans,” as the film describes them, immediately begin to attack her. The action is stagnantly staged wire-fu, there hardly is one time someone is kicked where it doesn’t defy physics and a villain is sent flying 40 feet and spinning around a dozen times, where you can tell the wires were removed with post-CGI.
Jackpot!’s script is utterly predictable. The comedy is forced, mostly due to cringeworthy dialogue that even Awkwafina cannot save. There is a scene at the end when Cena’s character yells at Katie to stay away from the story’s main villain, which will make anyone want to passive-aggressively yell at the screen, just as Captain Obvious would. The movie is filled with such tedious and grating moments of nothingness.
Along with bad acting, almost everyone in the film—except for two good cameos by Sean William Scott and Triangle of Sadness star Dolly de Leon—is subpar, which is putting it politely. The film is unfunny, wooden, hackneyed, and completely predictable, with virtually nothing new to say on subjects like greed, conformity, community, and violence (Shirley Jackson will surely be rolling over in her grave). Jackpot! continues the downward trend in John Cena’s once-promising film career.
