The 5 Best Movies Starring The Rock, According To Dads

January 7, 2019

There are few actors working today with as much dad-klout as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He’s one of the hardest working men in Hollywood, and his cheat days are the stuff of legends. But of his many, many films, what are the five that dads are most likely to watch over and over again? Well, here are five films starring The Rock that no dad can truly resist.

Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle

Most of us were skeptical when we heard about this Jumanji reboot. After all, the original Robin Williams film remains a classic, and the concept of switching the game to an arcade video game seemed like a desperate nostalgia grab. But somehow this ended up…being good? Granted, having Jack Black play a teenage girl is a classic recipe for dad-laughs, but most dads would be willing to admit that even they are surprised they like this film as much as they do.

Pain and Gain

Pain and Gain was a deceptively unsettling and interesting movie, which is not what you’d necessarily expect from director Michael Bay. Dads can first get into the movie thanks to the presence of Mark Wahlberg and The Rock really getting after some weightlifting. But it eventually turned into a comically dark tale of an inept kidnapping gone wrong, with some twists and turns that are pretty surprising and gratifying.

Central Intelligence

There is an entire genre of films that put dad butts into movie theater seats based solely on the concept of “Kevin Hart is very short, and now he’s in a buddy-movie scenario with a very strong or tough person.” Granted, that genre exists for a reason. It makes money. A lot of money. However, that doesn’t take away from the fact that dads love these kind of movies, and Central Intelligence is one of the better, dad-approved films like it.

Moana

One of the more poorly-kept secrets in Hollywood is that dads like about 90% of all animated films they are “forced” to take their kids to. Moana remains one of the better animated films to come out in the past five years, a heartwarming story featuring The Rock as the voice of a demigod that has fun performances and great music all dads can get behind.

But of course, if a dad is going to want to watch just one movie with The Rock, it’s gotta be a movie from the Fast and the Furious franchise. And while we could just make this article a list of all the Fast/Furious movies he has starred in, we’ll pick just one. Specifically…

Fast Five

We’re going to go with the fifth film in the franchise for a few reasons. It’s arguably the best film in the whole series, it helped revive a franchise that might have ended without a great installment, and it’s the first to feature The Rock in his now iconic role of Hobbs. For those reasons, we’re going to give this the dad-film title. Though honestly, any movie with fast cars and insane stunts that has the Rock in it will be loved by dads across the nation. Such is the power of The Rock.