The Smashing Machine (2025) review

This fictionalized recreation of the life and career of soft-spoken wrestler/mixed martial artist Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) shows him traveling around the globe (to Brazil and Japan) to fight, becoming addicted to opiates and having difficulties dealing with his caring but emotionally unstable girlfriend Dawn Staples (Emily Blunt).  For Johnson, this is an ideal role (the prosthetics team did a wonderful job making him look like the real Kerr) and the sound design is intriguing, yet this biopic (which is based on a documentary) has the same plot points as so many similar movies - drug issues, lady problems, the agony of defeat - and it's entirely too leisurely paced considering nothing much exciting happens: Safdie relies on Dawn's breakdowns (and a suicide attempt) for drama, and the actual MMA scenes are rather ineffectually recorded (the "last bout" is especially anti-climactic because it doesn't finish with Kerr battling his best friend).  Since the previous releases he co-directed with his brother Josh are more spastic, it's easy to tell which of the two has the anxious personality type....