'Young Rock' and 'Kenan' give NBC a just-so-so comedy tag team
CNN
NBC puts together a high-profile tag team in "Young Rock" and "Kenan," comedies featuring Dwayne Johnson and Kenan Thompson. While the former feels a tad overinflated in its biographical dive into the star's early life, the latter crafts a pretty conventional series around the "Saturday Night Live" star.
"Young Rock" might have worked better as a movie, as opposed to what's essentially "Dwayne Johnson: The Wonder Years Edition." The wrinkle that helps tease the show out is that it touches on three separate formative periods -- with Johnson played by different young actors at ages 10, 15 and as he begins his college football days at Miami -- as told by a future version of the wrestler turned actor mounting a 2032 presidential run. Johnson is recounting his history to an admiring interviewer ("Fresh Off the Boat's" Randall Park), which keeps the actual guy in the series. The reminiscence includes his father Rocky (Joseph Lee Anderson), a wrestler back in the day; his mom (Stacey Leilua), part of a wrestling family; and their wrestler pals -- often seen hanging out at their house -- including big names (literally) like Andre the Giant (Matthew Willig, not quite that big, but big enough) and the Iron Sheik (Brett Azar).
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