Never Back Down

The advertisements for this movie do it serious injustice. I was standing in the lobby of a movie theater at a free showing, and almost didn't walk in, because the trailers and ads had me convinced it was a complete waste of time. The advertisements portray the film as being merely a vehicle for shirtless boys to beat on each other and hot girls to wear bikinis. While there is no shortage of either, the movie has a strong underlying theme and a decent plot.

At the thematic level, the movie is about accepting responsibility for your actions, controlling your emotions, and making good choices. It's as much about motivations as macho.

Yes, it is a teen-targeted movie. You've got rich kids running around in massive mansions driving expensive cars, but that's just the setting. You've got people beating the crap out of each other, but that's just a plot device. The heart of the movie is about personal growth and making choices. It's not an empty action flick or a taped brawl.

It's not the best film of the year, and it may well wind up as a late night cable movie in a few months, but it's nowhere near as bad as people expect. It's definitely worth the price of a rental, and worth the $10 to see it in theaters, if you've got no other plans. I blame the negativity largely on the advertising, which tries to sell it as "just another fight movie".

Perhaps my descriptive summary is unkind to this film. I enjoyed it so much because it depicts a young man learning to deal with his emotions, rather than being ruled by his fear of them. It is quite remarkable, the strength of character he ultimately develops, and his interactions with his instructor are gratifyingly free of the childish morality one dreads in such a film, or the typical oriental platitudes that often hallmark them because of the origins of martial arts. At the root of this, I think, is the film's willingness to observe and comment on the 'problem' emotion of anger. Rather than leave it festering, or simply transform it 'as if by magic', the audience can almost see the transformation in the main character, through his physical exertion, which eventually leaves him free of its destructive role in his life. For most, if not all, these reasons, I enjoyed the film because it resonated with me quite closely, but it may not be everyone's cup of tea.

If nothing else, I for one will be researching the possibilities of training in mixed martial arts!

Honestly I don't know the answer. This has been done so many times before. Still I keep watching parts again and again if not the whole movie. My guilty pleasure.

. . . Never Back Down was still a really great movie that I had a lot of fun watching, and I was surprised with how much I actually ended up liking it. Of course this film is really very predictable and was basically just a rip-off version of Fight Club, The Karate Kid, and movies like that in general that was basically aimed at 16, 17, and 18 year old boys, but it was really enjoyable if you just judge it based on an actual movie and not what audience it's trying to pull in.

It did get pretty annoying and downright unbelievable at times, but I have to give this movie it's props, because the acting was done very professionally for a bunch of model-body teenage actors, and it also managed to keep me so interested and entertained through the entire film with semi adroit and crafty, motivating scenes and material matter. It gets a bit mediocre, as I have said, and some stuff just falls flat, but they handle everything they lack so well with other interesting and appealing scenes and substance, excluding the featherweight dialogue, haha.

Overall, I was so happy with the outcome of this movie, because while being cliché, and certainly not worthy of winning an Oscar or anything like that, it was really enjoyable, and I had a great time watching it. If you lower your expectations and free your mind, I bet you will too. I suggest you see it if you can appreciate it for what it is. If anything else, there is Cam Gigandet and Sean Faris shirtless.

Wow, there is not one ugly person in all of Orlando, at least that's what this film wants you to believe. Do any high schools or high school students look like this, come on. What I love best is the quote on the back of the box " A little Karate Kid, a little Fight Club and a whole lot of The OC", WHAT? Is that suppose to make me buy it, please find me someone who loves all three of those, ya, no one. OK, so the film is not all bad, Djimon Hounsou is good as always, the look of the film is unique and the fight scenes are pretty darn good. Unfortunately the plot is predictable the characters are one dimensional, there is a girl cause there has to be, right and it attempts to send a message and fails horribly. I think the directors theory is fill the film with fight scenes and loud music montages and then you don't have to have character development or to much of their crappy dialogue. So I guess that helps the film instead of hurting it.