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There is one genuinely funny moment in this flick. In the intro scene, as The Rock makes his way towards his thuggish opponents in a nightclub, Arnold (governor of Caulifohhnia) passes him and sneers, "Have fun." Yes, that is the best part of the whole movie.

As if he's passing the baton and heading off to the governor's mansion to retire, Arnold basically hands the title of "Big Action Hero" off to The Rock.

And although everyone in town is indeed babbling about Rock being the next guy for this sort of role, all one can do for the rest of the movie is think of how much more entertaining this piece of crap would be if it were Arnold saying lines like "Go away, monkey!" instead of a guy with the body of the Hulk and the eyes of a little doe.

What the hell happened to the real action movies? Oh yeah. They don't make those anymore. Nowadays, in these post-Columbine PG-13 punchfests, we get a hero who hates guns and only starts using them in the last 10 minutes. It's as if they're telling us, "No no, we'll shoot people... Just wait a little longer, the critics might say we're being too violent if we start now... Oh, but we can't show blood. Sorry."

The Rock's got screen presence, but NOTHING here can even be compared to the old school crew before they started doing bullshit like "Jingle All the Way" and "Unbreakable." Arnold, Bruce, and Sly, the Planet Hollywood trio, got replaced with Nicolas Cage, Tom Cruise, and whatever other A-list actor who always dreamed of being an action guy.

Then, when we finally get a dude who actually looks like he could beat someone up in real life on the screen, he's getting the torch passed to him by the guy who did "The Terminator," "Predator," "Total Recall," and "True Lies?" Is this really happening? Sadly, yes.

Backing Rocko up are Christopher Walken (making fun of his own persona with the four or five lines he has), Sean William Scott (trying hopelessly to be the next Jim Carrey), Ewen Bremmer (the guy who played Spud in "Trainspotting" and is now sinking low enough to take any flat role written for a stereotypical Scotsman), and Rosario Dawson (with a Brazilian accent that is so annoyingly fake that director Peter Berg should be put to the firing squad with her). It's not like anyone's looking for great acting in an action flick, but this is just ridiculous.

The fight scenes are okay, but even Arnold took a bloody lip here and there in his glory days before "End of Days." The Rock gets thrown down a mountain, beaten by a gang of Brazilians that move quicker than humming birds, whipped like a redheaded stepchild, and never takes a scratch. Laaaame.

It's possible that another cast and crew could have done something interesting with this script, but not very likely. "The Rundown" was destined to be a moneymaking behemoth that everyone forgets by next year, and that's what it is. However, it's likely they'll remind us of it with a sequel or two.

If you are a jackass, make absolutely sure to not spend money on a ticket to this one. Even if you don't feel it, the fact that you will be even stupider after having seen it is inevitable. Go steal a bicycle or something instead.

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