Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Main Event’ on Netflix, a WWE Movie That’s Not-Even-Thinly Veiled WWE Propaganda

The Main Event is Netflix’s second collaboration with World Wrestling Entertainment this month. It’s a feature-length movie produced by WWE, about a kid who’s a huge WWE fan with tons of WWE gear and WWE clothing who dreams of wrestling in the WWE and gets a shot at his WWE dream via a WWE tournament. Whether Netflix’s other WWE property, The Big Show Show, a WWE show about WWE wrestler The Big Show, is a glorified commercial for the WWE just like The Main Event is a glorified commercial for WWE, I can’t be certain. But I will let you know whether the WWE movie is a tolerable glorified commercial for WWE or not.

THE MAIN EVENT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: First we see the Netflix logo. Then we see the WWE logo, and we should get used to it, because we’re gonna see it a lot in the next 100 or so minutes. There’s this 11-year-old kid, Leo (Seth Carr), who sleeps in a bed that looks like a WWE wrestling ring, and whose room is littered and decorated with WWE posters and T-shirts and action figures and other merchandise you can buy featuring his big-time wrestling heroes, like Kofi Kingston and so, so many more of your favorites. On the way out the door to school, Leo’s Grandma (Tichina Arnold) casually mentions that it’s Monday, and a sentence or two later, reminds him that they have plans to watch WWE Raw that night, so set your DVRs!

Leo’s having a rough go of things right now. His mom ran off with another guy, so his maternal grandmother moved in for a while to help out. His dad (Adam Pally) owes the bank some money for nonspecific reasons, and works two jobs, day and night; whenever the topic of Leo’s mom comes up, Dad changes the subject and goes out to the driveway to mutter to himself while tinkering with his rusty old Camaro. On top of that, approximately three quintilliseconds after setting foot in school, Leo and his two buddies are, as these things always go, hassled by a trio of bullies consisting of one tall bully and two shorter bully accomplices. All this sucks, because it doesn’t require me to type the letters “WWE” three times per sentence.

After school, the Bully Three, who probably think the WWE is less than divine, chase Leo into an estate sale, where our protagonist finds a luchador’s mask that reeks from decades-old excretions, which is a joke, and also possibly an important plot point. He holds his breath and dons the garment, because his WWE dreams can withstand the discomfort, easy. Suddenly, he’s TRANSFORMED, AS IF BY MAGIC, into a heroic character: His voice drops an octave or two, he’s as strong and agile as Spider-Man and has the confidence to approach the cute girl at school. I haven’t mentioned the glorious multimedia entertainment phenomenon that is WWE in two sentences now, so thankfully and quite conveniently, said glorious multimedia entertainment phenomenon is holding a tournament in Leo’s bullshit town, and the winner will get a sack of loot and achieve superstardom via WWE reality show WWE NXT and probably eventually have bad knees.

So Leo dubs himself Kid Chaos and, after pantsing the bullies, ventures outside his WWE-plastered bedroom to a WWE-plastered room with a squared circle in the middle of it, where he takes on refrigerator-shaped humans who want to be WWE stars and are played by WWE stars, including Babatunde Aiyegbusi as a grunting goliath named Samson, who has a greasy manager for comic relief. Will Leo ever communicate with his father or get the girl? Will Kid Chaos clobber a bunch of gorillafolk on his way to WWE glory? Will we be brainwashed into consuming and loving a wide variety of WWE products? THOU SHALLN’T SPOIL THE WWE MOVIE.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Rookie of the Year is about the Chicago Cubs signing a 12-year-old kid after a freak accident leaves him with a rifle arm, and Like Mike is about an orphan who finds a pair of old Air Jordans and becomes an NBA star. But this is just a superficial comparison, because neither of these movies depict WWE as a utopian entertainment conglomerate that deserves your every spare nickel.

Performance Worth Watching: The acting here absolutely isn’t sub-Disney Channel nutty holiday-party cheeseball quality. In fact, Arnold’s portrayal of the wacky-but-pragmatic grandmother is the colorful characterization the movie needs when it isn’t full of WWE personalities shouting WWE trademarked phrases!

Memorable Dialogue: “We gonna watch Raw tonight?” — Grandma

Sex and Skin: None, save for the WWE making sweet love to your everything.

Our Take: Since you started reading this review, you’ve already purchased at least six pieces of WWE merchandise, right? SURE YOU HAVE! You probably snatched one of those bright blue Kofi Kingston T-shirts like Leo wears I bet, or some dolls to re-enact your favorite WWE matches, or even fired up a subscription to the WWE Network, which is CHOCK FULL of stunning, earth-shattering, groundbreaking WWE content!

I don’t even know why Leo needs a dad, who’s just a whiny guy (“Parenting is so HARD,” he laments) who doesn’t quit his job in order to be home to watch WWE shows with his kid. He shows remarkably little devotion to the WWE. He’s just too busy driving for LYFT, a swift, efficient ridesharing service that allows you to quickly and easily summon a ride using a handy smartphone app. LYFT: it’s another logo of a QUALITY BRAND featured prominently on the screen during WWE’s feature film The Main Event! Anyway, Leo’s mom and dad are utterly expendable, because the WWE can fill in all the psychological holes not being addressed by missing or depressed parents. WWE is good for everything that ails you, and good for everything that doesn’t ail you too! WWE is just great. Just great! JUST GREAT.

I was slightly confused by one part of this WWE movie, and that’s how it depicts WWE wrestling as real and not scripted, like it is in our reality, right? Am I misinformed? Is it WWE wrestling real? Maybe it’s real, just like in WWE movie The Main Event, which is set in a WWE Shangri-la where the WWE isn’t just god and government, but also dictates the words and actions of the wise grandma character! Why am I even thinking about the potential seams in the fabric of the perfection that is WWE reality? I think that’s a sign I need one of those WWE-brand lobotomies!

Our Call: SKIP IT. The Main Event is glossy, cheerful, corny, predictable, poorly directed propaganda, but it’s absolutely on point with the branded message! If you love the WWE, you’re gonna love this movie!

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream The Main Event on Netflix