We appear to be living in a brief sliver of time where anything is once again possible for Hollywood 's oiled up muscle men. Despite the seemingly endless ascendancy of geek chic and all of the power that Comic-Con could muster, "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" was throttled into box office irrelevance by Sly Stallone's "The Expendables" and its nearly geriatric band of bodybuilders. Dismayed nerds all across Twitter are still crying about this in 140 characters or less. As if foreseeing this paradigm shift from brains to brawn, WWE Studios, as in World Wrestling Entertainment, is invading the art house market by putting a small film called "Legendary" into limited release. Yes, the same people who once brought us the spectacle of Hulk Hogan ripping off his shirt or "Stone Cold" Steve Austin pouring Coors all over himself after pinning the Undertaker, are now going all Miramax on us.

The WWE's drive for Indiewood is still being carried on the massive shoulders of the company's standard bearer, John Cena, the sometimes world champ who causes stadiums filled with nine-year-olds to collectively wet their pants during his hip-hop laden ring entrances. Unlike Cena's previous action flick turns in "The Marine" (2006) and "12 Rounds" (2009) where he blows up half of Louisiana, his most dramatic moment in "Legendary" comes when he's being dressed down by Patricia Clarkson. That's the same Patricia Clarkson who just won critical raves with her performance in "Cairo Time," which is still playing independent theaters in San Francisco as I write this. But when Clarkson reads Cena the riot act in "Legendary," he doesn't respond by hitting the Oscar nominee with one of his devastating finishing moves like the Five-Knuckle Shuffle or the Attitude Adjustment. Instead, he takes the tongue-lashing and broods. Cena does a lot of brooding in "Legendary."

But "Legendary" isn't a huge stretch here for either WWE Films or John Cena, despite the movie's decided lack of explosions and car crashes. It's a coming of age story wrapped in a wrestling picture aimed at that audience of pre-teen boys that the WWE knows so well. "Legendary" is "The Karate Kid" on an Oklahoma high school wrestling mat, with John Cena as a much larger Mr. Miyagi. Then again, "Vision Quest" already was "Karate Kid" on a wrestling mat, only with the added bonus of a panty-sniffing scene and an appearance by Madonna singing "Crazy for You." "Legendary" contains nothing as risqué as panty sniffing but does have a lot of fishing in it, giving it all an extra dollop of "A River Runs Through It" (1992) for good measure.

Devon Graye (the guy who plays teenage Dexter) is in the Ralph Macchio (or is that Jaden Smith?) role as Cal Chetley, a bespectacled nerd who still gets plenty of sand kicked in his face as if "Scott Pilgrim" never happened. Cal's father, a local collegiate wrestling legend, died a decade ago. His brother Mike (Cena), another one of those grappling Chetleys, split the scene soon after and now lives in a dilapidated trailer like Randy "The Ram" Robinson from "The Wrestler." Despite being a beanpole, Cal joins the high school wrestling team in the hopes that he can lure his estranged older brother into training him. The coach takes him on the team because he doesn't have anyone else in the 135-pound weight class. Cal's doting mother (Clarkson) is dead-set against this.

"Wrestling is demanding," she pleads after hearing that Cal has gone out for the team, "it will take you away from everything else."

Greco-Roman wrestling tore this family apart, but now it's going to bring it back together. Cal needs to pin the village in order to save it. But before he can be mentored by Cena, Cal needs some tips on how to obtain mentoring from Danny Glover, who plays what Spike Lee would refer to as the "magical, mystical Negro" character. This should tell us something disturbing about the current condition of the young American male—they need tutoring before they can even start to be mentored. After taking in Glover's folksy wisdom, Cal is able to convince the reluctant Cena to hurl oversized medicine balls at him with the force of about 600 pounds per-square-inch. He also instructs Cal to show up to the weigh-ins in the buff.

"It shows you're proud. It shows you've got nothing to fear," Cena explains.

But despite Cal's need for an entire team of male role models and being roughed by jocks in the lunch line, Graye exudes an adult's level of confidence that cuts against the character. There's also not enough conflict here. Sure, there are those jocks, but Cal's nonchalance renders them into a minor annoyance at most. They're a far cry from the evil sensei and the Cobra Kais that plagued Daniel-san in "Karate Kid." In a later scene, Cal tells Cena that the coach is indifferent to him, but when we see the coach, he's so damned earnest and helpful where maybe a dash of villainy is called for. We need to see the indifference in order to feel its effects. At times, it's as if scriptwriter John Posey (who also plays the coach) and director Mel Damski (USA Network's "Psych") are avoiding the tried and true sports movie clichés without anything new to put in their place.

The film's most interesting character is not surprisingly its most conflicted: Cena's Mike Chetley. He's an unemployed roughneck who finds himself in and out of Muskogee courtrooms for tossing thugs through barroom windows. Where Cena's acting improved slightly from "The Marine" to "12 Rounds," he takes another step forward here. The best scene in "Legendary" is that one moment between Clarkson and Cena mentioned earlier. Unfortunately, it's one of their only scenes together. Sure, Clarkson handles most of the acting, but Cena is able to show a simmering intensity that anchors the scene.

Cena's dramatic chops in "Legendary" bear a resemblance to the raw, 1950s Elvis Presley. Before MGM and Colonel Tom Parker conspired to make the King into the happy-go-lucky singing auto mechanic in several indistinguishable bubblegum musicals, directors such as Michael Curtiz ("Casablanca") and Don Siegel ("Dirty Harry") elicited a Presley consumed by working class resentments in "King Creole" (1958) and "Flaming Star" (1960). Like the young Elvis, Cena channels the violent energy of his live performance into screen acting that is rough but effective.

"Legendary" is still an enjoyable follow up to this summer's hit "Karate Kid" remake, and if you're the parent of a kid who regards Cena as some kind of a demigod (like Open Salon blogger T. Michael Stone), then the fantasy of having their hero teach them pin fall maneuvers will more than carry this movie for them. Also, the kinds of sleazy angles from the WWE's recent past that Linda McMahon is catching hell for in her senate campaign are completely absent from "Legendary," so don't worry about an unadvertised bra and panties match breaking out in the middle of act three. "Legendary" is as tame as an early 1980s "After School Special." "Legendary" also shows that WWE Studios is capable of more than just action potboilers, but one hopes that they don't completely shy away from that gratuitous spectacle that they do so well in future releases.