Never Back Down [Blu-ray]
Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (summit) Release Date: 07/29/2008 If you get caught up in the sweaty fight scenes in Never Back Down–and, despite the formulaic plot, you very likely will–it will be due to the sheer kinetic pleasure of muscular bodies in motion. Jake (Tom Cruise look-alike Sean Faris, Yours, Mine, and Ours), full of anger after his father’s death, starts to find a place for himself at his new Florida high school–until Ryan, the head of an underground mixed-martial arts (Cam Gigandet, The O.C.), picks Jake out as a prime opponent. After being trounced by Ryan in front of everyone in school, Jake begins training under the firm, moral guidance of a martial arts master with a hidden past (Djimon Hounsou, a long way from Blood Diamond, but still bringing his essential gravitas to the screen). Basically, Never Back Down boils down to a cross between The Karate Kid and Fight Club, minus the sociopolitical commentary. The story and characters are a bundle of featherweight cliches, but that won’t stop the aggressively edited fight sequences from stoking a viewer’s adrenaline. Also starring Amber Heard (All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) as the very blonde love interest, who (along with an abundance of girls in bikinis–’cause, y’know, it’s Florida) is there to assure everyone that these handsome, chiseled boys are strictly heterosexual. –Bret Fetzer
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars modern day karate kid
Moove over, Japan. The new karate kid is inspired by the Brazilian fight tradition! Several references to Brazil helped make this movie more contemporary (hey, many more Brazilians in Florida than Japanese!) and savory. Sean Faris is a good actor, and made the extra effort to make his character believable. Djimon Honsou is great and deliver a sensible performance. And what about this being a teen fightclub? Not even close. There is no ideology here, just cool teen entertainment and nothing much else. Worth an afternoon at the theather.
4 Stars Never Back Down blu-ray
For those who can’t help but want to watch a teenage angst, coming of age, predictable, mixed martial arts movie…this is a quilty pleasure.
Picture and sound are up to the standard as are extras. I have it and I still watch it from time to time.
2 Stars uninspired Karate Kid rip-off
“Never Back Down” takes place in one of those only-in-the-movies high schools where the students spend most of their time partying, brawling and posting videos of themselves on the internet - and virtually none of it studying.
Jake Tyler is the football hero with the stereotypical name who reluctantly moves from Iowa to Orlando, Florida with his mother and kid brother after the death of his father. Jake has trouble adjusting to life in his new school where the law of the jungle clearly predominates and where the favorite extracurricular activity consists of beating one another senseless between classes. That survival-of-the-fittest mentality is further reinforced by a sort of underground fight club whose existence is apparently known to everyone on campus except for the clueless faculty who seem utterly oblivious to all the black eyes and bruised faces that keep popping up in their classrooms on an almost daily basis. But then what can one expect from a school in which the girls all dress like streetwalkers and the boys are all granite-jawed jocks who are suffering from a major case of testosterone-overload?
This cheapjack rip-off of “The Karate Kid” even boasts its own version of Mr. Miyagi - a character-building mixed martial arts teacher who takes Jake under his wing, imparting two-bit life lessons while he instructs his pupil in the fine art of how not to get his butt kicked at school.
The movie adheres to every single cliché endemic to the genre, including an arch villain whose super hot girlfriend switches her allegiance to the sensitive, misunderstood hero when it suddenly dawns on her what an irredeemable cad her boyfriend truly is. And all this is done to a surfeit of fighter-in-training montage sequences backed by a generic rock soundtrack.
Sean Faris has sufficient charisma to make us care about Jake, and the always splendid Djimon Hounsou brings some much needed gravitas to the proceedings as the philosophy-spouting mentor. But the movie, as a whole, is just way too formulaic to engage our interest much beyond the ferocious and well executed fight scenes.
If you’re hankering for a truly great teen drama, my advice would be to tune into the latest installment of “Friday Night Lights” and skip “Never Back Down” altogether.
4 Stars Awesome Movie
This movie is awesome. I was expecting it to be a knock off of other fighting movies with a plot that would bore me. I was delighted to find that not only was Never Back Down different from the other fighting movies the plot didn’t completely evolve around a cheesey tournament where our hero and villian will meet for a final showdown. I don’t wanna spoil the movie, but the ending is a shocker and I was pleased. Also the fighting scenes are great for a movie with a PG-13 rating. I was shocked that they allowed as much blood and violence as they did, and kept that rating. I dont add many movies to my “recomend to friends” list, but this one made it.
3 Stars Been There Done That
If watching NEVER BACK DOWN seems familiar, it is. The plot, themes, and fight sequences are taken straight from THE KARATE KID, THE FIGHT CLUB, and any presentation of the UFC. Sean Faris has the task of playing an updated Ralph Machio, a high school kid who moves into jock territory, where he is soon tricked into facing a serious beat down from the local mixed martial arts star (Cam Gigandet)–also a high school student. In real life, both are pushing thirty yet play teens. The age differential is only one area that marks this film more as a fantasy than either of its progenitors. The high school that Faris attends is populated exclusively by jock types (Faris/Gigandet), lovely model types (Amber Heard who plays the love interest), and assorted nerds who exist only to suffer at the fists of the bully boys. Except for Faris, everyone is impossibly rich. There are nightly parties at mansions, where Gatsby-like, entertainment is provided in the form of ritualized beatdowns. The plot is based on the successful KARATE KID model. In this case the Pat Morita role is played by Djion Honsou, who teaches the martial arts not as a stylized kata in karate but as the much copied format seen weekly in the Octagon of the UFC. Honsou, like Morita before him, perpetuates the belief that one can teach a novice enough about fighting in a few weeks to win a local championship. The training sessions are grim and brutal. The forward thrust of the film is the climax between Faris and Gigandet, with a number of ROCKY sequences used. Unlike Machio, who played the Karate Kid as a basically likable sort, Faris acts more like an unregenerate jerk. He is filled with rage over the death of his father, and he unwisely disregards the sage advice of his sensei, who like Pat Morita, has his own issues with the past. Faris reminds me of an early Tom Cruise, both of whom have the ability to rise above a lame script to give watchable performances. However, in NEVER BACK DOWN, the lack of originality limits audience interest to the numerous fight scenes, all of which have been done before, done better, and done with more flair.
Filed under: Blue Ray Movie Reviews