12 Rounds 3: Lockdown

Title: 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown

Director: Stephen Reynolds

Released: 2015

Starring: Dean Ambrose, Roger Cross, Daniel Cudmore, Lochlyn Munro, Ty Olsson, Sarah Smyth, Rebecca Marshall, Toby Levins, Bill Dow, Sharon Taylor, Matthew Harrison

Plot: Detective John Shaw (Ambrose) returning from recently being shot while on duty in an incident which claimed the life of his partner, he has little time to settle back into work when he accidentally uncovers incriminating evidence about fellow detective Tyler Burke (Cross) who soon locks down the precinct with his team of dirty cops leaving Shaw alone to get the truth out.

Review: The second of the “Action Six-Pack” series from Lionsgate and WWE Studios after the Soska Sisters prison drama “Vendetta” the script for this film originally titled just “Lockdown” was nothing to do with the previous “12 Rounds” films, but with the studio clearly keen to have another franchise to go alongside their ever popular “Marine” series the script was reworked to create this second sequel to the Renny Harlin original which stared John Cena. Unlike the previous two films though which saw their hero being forced to complete 12 challenges, this film does away with the concept entirely and instead goes with the much more literal 12 rounds which Detective Shaw has in his gun to take on the dirty cops now hunting for him.

When it comes to the WWE Films its always with a sense of impending dread and hesitation that I often find myself entering into these films with. More so when it means being faced with Wrestlers not being able to carry the charisma of their ring personas over to the screen. There was a brief period were this issue was countered by the films featuring the wrestler in a supporting role as seen with the likes of “The Call” and “Dead Man Down” but lately they seem to be drifting back to the original model of having the wrestlers play the lead roles. True we have had several wrestlers who’ve proven themselves capable of carrying their films such as The Miz and to an extent Kane but at the same time we’ve also had the clumsy comedy of Triple H in “The Chaperone.

When it comes to Dean Ambrose whose ring persona is that of a deranged lunatic you’d expect to see him cast in a role like Riggs from “Lethal Weapon” and despite seemingly being introduced as the sort of cop who plays by his own rules end up coming off like more of a John McClane styled character especially when this film boils down to what is essentially Die Hard on a budget. At the same time Ambrose might not be the worst wrestler turned actor but at the same time here he never seems to ever get out of first gear with his persona which generally just stays on one level throughout the film. At the same time his character is barely developed throughout the film, despite plot points being scattered throughout the film such as his responsibility over the death of his partner we never really get a feeling of him being a fully developed character especially when outside of this fact we don’t get to know anything really about him.

Roger Cross’s dirty cop Burke on the other hand is an almost cartoonish villain seemingly modelled after Alonzo Harris from “Training Day” who somehow has a whole mini-army of fellow dirty cops who he can not only bring in at a moments notice, but are somehow able to lockdown the whole police station with minimum amount of hassle, let alone how easy Burke is able to convice everyone that Shaw is the dirty cop which would be easier if he was the loose cannon kind of cop you’d expect Ambrose to be playing, but when he’s been viewed as the good cop who just wants to make a difference it makes zero sense that he could be so easily framed.

Another issue the film has is that Shaw never has someone to play off like McClane had Al in the original “Die Hard” and instead leaves us with scenes of him muttering to himself and Burke barking orders and generally voicing his frustration at constantly being thwarted in his attempts to take out Shaw. We do get the rookie office Taylor (Smyth) who seems to be introduced to fill this role for Shaw and perhaps in some way help redeem him for getting his partner killed, but sadly she never gets to play much more than a bargaining chip between Burke and Shaw.

Thankfully the action scenes here really make up for a lot of the flaws in the film with Reynolds crafting exciting scenes of both gun play and general hand to hand combat with Shaw showing the same kind of inspired thinking on his feet which made John McClane such a memorable action hero as seen here by him convincing the bad guys he’s gone into the vents when he’s actually hiding out in the same room.We also get a unique use for a taser which really needs to be seen.

While the plotting is pretty standard and by the numbers it largely works and plods along nicely throughout while being broken up with decent bursts of action. However it is let down by the final act which sees the inclusion of a much unneeded double cross which should have been cut out as it not only has zero effect on the plot but doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense.

On the whole this is like so many of the WWE Studio films in that its disposable yet entertaining and if anything much like “Sausage Party” I’m actually kind of concerned by how much I enjoyed this one, though hardly a breakout role for the acting career of Dean Ambrose. Still compared to the dreck being churned out by the likes of the Sci-fi channel you really could do a lot worse than giving this a watch.

Santa's Little Helper

Title:  Santa’s Little Helper

Director:  Gil Junger
Released:  2015
Starring: The Miz, Paige, AnnaLynne McCord, Eric Keenleyside, Kathryn Kirkpatrick, Maryse Quellet Mizanin

Plot: Dax “The Axe” is a fast talking and slick businessman who is in fact so good at his job that he manages to eliminate his own job. Now he finds himself unwittingly being put through a series of training exercises by elf Billie (Paige) in hopes of becoming the new Santa’s Little Helper.
 

 

Review:  After last year giving us a passable sequel to “Jingle All The Way” with their Larry The Cable Guy fronted and imaginatively titled “Jingle All The Way 2” this film now marks WWE Studios second attempt to cash in on the festive season with WWE Wrestler The Miz being given another lead role after seemingly becoming the face of “The Marine” franchise after he starred in part 3 and 4. This time he also joined by DIVA Paige who shows up as the devious elf Eleanor who feels she has earned the role as “Santa’s Little Helper”.

This film is also another of the occasional jaunts into more family friendly fare, with the company seemingly more happy to churn out action and horror films starring wrestlers from the WWE roster. No doubt this decision is largely based on the fact that most of their product is released for the DTV market with few receiving theatrical releases if any, while it could equally be down to the fact that none of these lighter movies have been any good with “The Chaperone” still haunting me now, more so when you have Triple H one of their biggest ass kickers being reduced to hamming it up in a kids caper movie.

Gil Junger doesn’t really give us anything groundbreaking from the usual festive fare, while in away highlighting how far he’s really fallen since making his directing debut with “10 Things I Hate About You” before moving onto directing mainly TV these days.  Here though he’s clearly working from a script which seemingly can’t decide who its audience is as it flits between family themed material and more adult jokes but never settling on either one leaving the film really at times feeling disjointed at best.

The main meat of the film is the usual arsehole turned good by the festive season fare with the recently fired Dax thinking he’s taking part in an interview and the tasks assigned to him by Billie being all part of the process. These tasks of course only getting more random as the film goes on as he starts by trying resolving conflict by ticking off a bunch of bikers before trying to cheer up some old folks which soon descends into him stripping for their amusement when they turn out to be more sexed up than they first seemed. For some reason Dax never overly questions any of these tasks, while constantly somehow managing to find a way to link them to various business moguls as he tries to figure out who he’s interviewing for.

Of course when Dax does find out the role he’s being interviewed for it does end up being a cringe worthy experience, as seemingly he could have been responsible for everything from curing the common cold to being an astronaut had his childhood been better. The fact that he’s so quick to accept the position and what it entails is only the baffling. Still in a change from the usual child actor gathering that tends to be every Santa’s workshop here all the elves are normal sized actors in their twenties while Mrs Claus constantly seems to be fixed on feeding everyone cookies.

Performance wise the Miz is surprisingly not too bad as an actor, especially when compared to some of the other performances we have seen from some of his fellow wrestlers over the years and here he has a very natural charisma even if some of Dax’s actions are far from believable. That being said his great chemistry with McCord keeps things fun even if none of the tasks seem to relate to anything remotely festive. McCord meanwhile is hardly being pushed here in the role of the bubbly pretty elf, who frequently makes reference to her deformity which is essentially an overplayed way of saying she has normal ears rather than the more traditional pointy ones, but the way it’s played here you would think it’s something much more drastic.

One of the main flaws the film has is the distinct lack of any kind of disenable threat, despite the film not throwing one but three potential villains at Dax. First we have the devious elf Eleanor played here also surprisingly well by fellow wrester Paige, who despite making a large number of threats about claiming he position of Santa’s Little Helper for herself fails to do very little outside of challenging him to an obstacle course race. Elsewhere the film tries to work in villainous turns from his former boss who wants to knock down the local community centre, aswell as the former centre manager who framed Dax when he was a teenager for stealing the Christmas donations. All of which ultimately fall flat and as a result leave the film with a disappointingly flaccid finale, even if it is kind of amusing to see Dax trying to take on a digger bare handed.

While the film doesn’t feel like a waste of time as a casual watch, its lack of substance and general plotting make it harder to recommend nor place it into the cult film bracket, but looking at the mountain of similar movies out there, it’s safe to say you could certainly do worse than this, while the Miz equally makes it a more bearable experience than it may have been with another member of the WWE roster.

See No Evil 2

Title: See No Evil 2

Director: Jen Soska, Sylvia Soska
Released: 2014
Starring: Glen “Kane” Jacobs, Danielle Harris, Katherine Isabelle, Chelan Simmons, Kaj-Erik Eriksen, Greyston Holt, Lee Majdoub, Michael Eklund.

Plot: Following on directly from the events of the first film the bodies of Jacob Goodnight (Jacobs) and his victims are transported to the city morgue, were Amy (Harris), Seth (Eriksen) and their boss Holden (Eklund) are currently working the graveyard shift. At the same time Amy’s friends have planned to throw her a surprise party at work unaware that a recently revived Jacob Goodnight will soon be crashing the party.

Review: The sequel to the second and arguably best film to currently have been produced by WWE Studios even though “The Marine” to date has managed to spawn three sequels, something which only raises the question as to why it’s taken until now for the studio to commit to producing a sequel. Unquestionably though it would seem that the Soska’s rise through the Horror ranks has been nothing short of meteoric especially on the back of breakout hit “American Mary” now serving as their calling card as they continue to produce horror films in their own distinctive style and despite this being the first film they’ve made which they didn’t write its an originality that here once more shines through.

It would of course be kind of fitting that after almost two decades of playing the wrestling boogyman for the WWE as the big red machine Kane that he would be given his own horror franchise and a Jason Voorhees style character to call his own. Sadly this seem that it wouldn’t happen after the first film hardly set the world on fire, though the reasons why I’m still not sure off. Thankfully the Twins got the gig to give him a second shot and despite not working from their own script but rather one devised by first time writers Nathan Brookes and Bobby Lee Darby, the twins still manage to bring a lot of their style to the film and even kick the character of Jacob Goodnight up several notches from his original appearance to become a much more rounded slasher than we got in the first film.  

The cast here is comprised of largely indie and unknowns, though we do get not one but two scream queens with both Danielle Harris and Katherine Isabelle who once again shines under the direction of the Soska's even if she is this time on supporting cast duties, as she one again leaves you hoping that she continues to be regular player for them, especially considering how she remains cruelly underappreciated as an actress, despite her recent appearances on “Hannibal”. Elsewhere Michael Eklund continues his streak of WWE films by appearing here let alone giving me something lighter to compete with his psyche scaring performance in “The Divide”.

While it could be considered that Jacobs is playing essentially his wrestling persona only in a different wrapper, thankfully this not the case as Jacobs once again nails the role providing moments of intimidation alongside a Jason style abused and mother dominated psyche, highlighted here largely through flashback sequences which only highlight the screwed up homelife his character had, while at the same time filling in the reasons behind his modus operandi. The character also gets something of a facelift or atleast gets a cool looking Perspex mask aswell as a whole new toybox of surgical implements to unleash bloody carnage with, although it was nice to see that him still bring out the trademark hook and chain which again he uses with surprising accuracy as we get to see with one of early kills here. The only thing that did bug me about the character is that we are never quite sure if he’s supposed to be a zombie seeing how he dies at the start of the film or if he’s just tougher than old leather (and trust me he takes one hell of a battering) and somehow able to control his heartbeat which perhaps unintentionally felt like a throwback to Poppy Z. Brite’s serial killers in love novel “Exquisite Corpse”.

The kills all shine for their originality as various surgical implements are put to good use while one kill in particular which I will resist the urge to spoil truly caught me by surprise, even more for how out of nowhere it came, while being added to thanks to some well-timed slow-mo footage. At the same time the morgue setting makes for an interesting change of pace while at the same time providing easy access to the implements that Jacob Goodnight is soon putting to good use with the scene in which he opens a cupboard to revel rows of shiny surgical tools and implements being unquestionably one of my favourites of the whole movie.

While the film is unquestionably in the traditional slasher mould, the Soska’s are not afraid of tweaking the format so that just when you think you have the film figured out they change the rules, ensuring that your kept guessing as to how this one will end right up to the end. At the same time there is an unquestionably strong female element that they bring to the film as female characters are as empowered and strong as the male characters with one of the key examples coming in the form of the sexual aggressive Tamara (Isabelle) who when not engaging in acts which verge on necrophilia, is forcing her boyfriend to go down on her, reversing the roles and empowering the more traditional slasher role for the slutty girl.

True the film has isn’t without its flaws with scenes of the leads mobiles being put into a safe, before the only character who seemingly knows the combination is killed off is never brought up again despite seemingly being setup as an element of peril, but potentially this could finally be the film to kickstart “See No Evil” as a series for WWE Studios to rival their seemingly endless line of sequels for “The Marine” they are currently churning out and more so if they entrust it to the Soska’s to build upon what they established here. In the meantime we can at least look forward to their next project with the studio with the prison movie “Vendetta” which will see them working with another WWE giant “The Big Show” let alone their currently in development adaptation of the comic book “Painkiller Jane” which if this film is anything to go off, we should be very excited for.

Jingle All The Way 2

Title: Jingle All The Way 2

Director: Alex Zamm

Released: 2014

Starring: Larry the Cable Guy, Brian Stepanek, Santino Marella, Kennedi Clements, Kristen Robek, Rachel Hayward, Matty Finochio, Eric Breker, Brenda Crichlow, Alex Zamm

Plot: Divorced dad Larry (Larry the Cable Guy) is on the hunt for a Harrison Bear the must have toy for his daughter Noel (Clements), only to soon find himself in direct competition with her wealthy stepfather Victor (Stepanek).

 

Review: This sequel has certainly been a long time in the works coming 18 years after the original film, which saw Arnie showcasing his usual action hero antics only within a family movie setting and while it might have been critically mauled on its release it has over years built a notable cult following making the fact that we now have this film none the less surprising.

Directed by Alex Zamm whose spent most of his career churning out direct to DVD sequels, the film is interestingly also a co-production with “WWE Studios” who have now moved from their original template of putting wrestlers into leading roles for their productions and now instead use their roster in supporting roles for the majority of their output bar a couple of exceptions such as “The Marine” series and the forthcoming “The Condemned 2 which have stuck to the original template. So with this film we get Santino Marella (minus his trademark Italian accent) playing the sidekick to bumbling redneck Larry.

Sadly Arnie choose not to come back for the sequel dashing any hopes we might have had in seeing a round two between him and Sinbad which in a perfect world would have been in giant furby costumes, but alas it was sadly not to be. So instead we have Larry playing….well Larry a character which is not too much of a stretch from his usual antics as he plays the fun loving and terminally laid back father, who shares a great relationship with his daughter, even with his questionable approach to parenting as seen with the film opening with his questionable approach to a healthy breakfast (Cheetos and twinkies). At the same time he has a great relationship with his ex-wife, let alone everyone he encounters, but still it is nice to see a more modern look on the divorced parent’s scenario, than the usual my ex-wife is a bitch. I do have to question how we are supposed to believe that these two were ever married especially considering how polar opposite they are yet alone the fact that she would ever except going to sizzler on her honeymoon as Larry proudly proclaims.

Plot wise the film is none to different from the first with Larry dashing about trying to find a Harrison bear, which seemingly is a furrier version of the “Good Guy Doll” from “Child’s Play” as it interacts with the child and learns their name etc, only with none of the downsides of being possessed by the spirit of a serial killer. However unlike the first film here the toy is in plentiful supply which would have made this a much shorter film, had it not been for Noel’s wealthy stepfather who uses his fortune made from cardbox boxes which it would seem are surprisingly lucrative, seeing how he is able to buy up every Harrison bear in town as part of his “Operation: Who’s The Daddy” scheme which I’m not sure if it means the same stateside, but here in the UK certainly has a more raunchy meaning. Stepanek while for the most part in the role is pretty much seems to be going through the motions of your typical direct to DVD villain only minus any kind of real threat and at the same time lacking in the smugness that Phil Heartman brought to fill this void that the lack of threat brings, even though his surprisingly more threatening head of security does a pretty good job.

I’ve not had a lot of experience with the work of Larry the Cable Guy and only recently found out while researching for this review that he is also the voice of Mater in “Cars” but here he certainly seems to be channelling the same fun energy that Jim Varney brought to his “Ernest” movies even if Larry does seem to embrace the same love of over the top disguises, with the closest to this being when he pretends to be homeless to get a bear at a toy drive, which while kind of questionable does at least see Larry question his actions. The majority of the film though is spent concocting increasingly more hair brained schemes, such as a failed attempt to put together his own festive lights display or even more randomly trying to bring snow down from the mountains. Its only made more random by the willingness for other people (mainly Claude) are to help him with them.

The humour throughout is largely slapstick with a spattering of forced humorous moments but compared to the live action of Disney its certainly miles ahead even if its lingering around the same comedy level of most frat comedies, making it not a bad way to waste away some time over the festive season. Ultimately though this does pale in comparison to the superior original whose inventiveness let alone star power helped raise it well above the level of your usual festive vehicle so it was always going to be a hard film to beat but compared to the current crop of festive movies this is certainly one of the better efforts and it certainly made me smile while equally making me hope that we see more film work by Santino Marella.

Welcome To The Jungle AKA: The Rundown

Title: Welcome To the Jungle AKA: The Rundown

Director: Peter Berg
Released: 2003
Staring: Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Rosario Dawson, Christopher Walken, Ewen Bremner, Jon Gries, Ernie Reyes Jr, William Lucking, Arnold Schwarzenegger

Plot: Beck (Johnson) is a “retrieval expert”, keen to get out of the business so that he can open a restaurant, something not made easier by boss Walker (Lucking) constantly screwing him over. However when Walker agrees to release Beck from his contract if he can do one last job, he soon finds himself heading to South America to get Walker’s son Travis (Scott) in the town of El Dorado nicknamed “Helldorado” by the locals due to local tyrant Hatcher (Walken) who is not so keen to let Travis leave, especially when he belives that Travis can lead him to a rare artefact O Gato do Diablo aka “The Devils Cat”.
 

Review: Despite being the breakout film for Johnson whom at this point was still working under his equally well know wrestling alter-ego “The Rock”, it surprisingly remains largely unseen by most people outside of wrestling / action fans which is something of a shame as it is certainly one of the better wrestler headling productions which WWE Studios was setup to make, especially with WWE owner Vince McMahon never being one to miss a promotion opportunity, even though wrestlers have hardly had a track record as credible acting talent, even more when such promotion ideas have lead to the world being given such cinematic monstrosities as “Santa With Muscles” and “Mr. Nanny” both staring Hulk Hogan back when he decided to take a break from trying to convince the world he was still relevant as a wrestler and instead was trying to convince the world he could act.

Still this has not been to say that there haven’t been wrestlers who have managed to transfer their ring presence to the screen, as seen with Kane (See No Evil), Rowdy Roddy Piper (They Live / Hell Comes To Frogtown) and current WWE favourite John Cena who surprisingly has not had the same luck that Johnson has had, despite appearing in the surprisingly good “The Marine” and the sadly overlooked “12 Rounds”, though perhaps if he wasn’t appearing in trash like “Fred: The Movie” it might also help. This film however would prove to be just the boost that Johnson’s acting career needed, especially after his previous lead in “The Scorpion King” failed to be the star making vehicle that it was expected to be, while this film seemingly was crafted to work to all of Johnson’s strengths such as his natural charm and general ass kicking abilities, while finally showing him as the leading man the WWE wanted him to be seen as.

Director Berg was an interesting choice to direct this film, especially considering that his only feature credit at this point in his career was the black comedy “Very Bad Things” a polar opposite of this film, which clearly sparked in him a taste for action movies, especially seen by the films like “The Kingdom” and “Battleship” which followed in the wake of this film and here crafts a confident and flashy action comedy which with its treasure hunting subplot also seemingly is trying to work within a similar mould to the Indiana Jones movies. Berg though ensures that the film hits the ground running with a brutal club fight when a collection doesn’t go as smoothly as Beck would like and from here the pace never lets up the film continues at a breezy pace, effortless combining scenes of comedy with bone crunching action, with Johnson proving himself equally at home with either style, while Scott provides most of the laughs as he plays the sort of goofball sidekick that Johnny Knoxville has been for the best part of his acting career been trying to play with decidedly mixed results and even though is essentially the same kind of double act we saw in “Bullet Proof Monk”. Also on comedy relief is Ewan Bremner who no doubt most of us remember as Spud from Trainspotting, than any of his other random roles and here seems to be have been included only because American audiences find the Scottish accent insanely funny or so it would seem, especially considering that its this kind of thinking that gave Shrek (something else I don’t get the appeal of) a Scottish accent.

Certainly what really helps this film though is the huge advantage of casting Walken as its Villain, who here truly is on scene chewing duties as he manages to invoke the same kind of presence that he had in “King of New York” were he doesn’t need to rely on random of acts of violence to seem imposing and like Frank in that film, he has his group of thugs enforce his will should anyone wish to test him, which in this case is a group of bullwhip welding heavies. Meanwhile his income is supplied through forcing the local villagers to dig in his mines for gold, something which I have a feeling was more the result of a rewrite in the production process, even more so when his mines have more the look of a blood diamond mine, which is what I assume he was originally mining for. Still this is Walken at his villainous best, so that when he steps up to a towering man mountain like Johnson (even more so outside of the ring), he still retains an intimidating error and one of someone very much in control of the situation, even though Beck could no doubt despatch of Hatcher with the minimum amount of ease, Hatcher’s status within this village as a tyrant means that he raised well before his own limitations and it’s a role sold perfectly by Walken.

Beck though is far from your traditional action hero, seeing how he shuns the use of guns and would prefer to diplomatically work things out with his foes, rather than just using his fists, as seen during the opening confrontation, were after his initial attempts to reason with the football player he’s been set to collect from result in a drink to the face, normal cue to said football player to be introduced to alittle badass dentistry, but instead Beck walks away and phone his bosses to try and find another way to handle the situation, only to then be forced into unleashing his badass side which as we will see throughout the film is never a good thing for those crossing Beck. However bizarrely there is no real reason given for why Beck handles his business like this or why he hates guns, with the only reason being given is the idea that seemingly Beck is only in his current line of work to help fund his restaurant dream. Beck however as would see with the later action movies Johnson has made, is the same kind of softly softly action hero that his future similar roles would be cast from and the sort of badass that Vin Diesel likes to play, were with their size they appear dominating yet are more happy to avoid confrontation were they can and either reason or intimidate those who get in their way, before resorting to a good old fashioned ass kicking when that fails.

Looking back at this film it is now easy to see how Johnson made the leap from wrestler to actor, even more so with the bold career choices which followed such as his lead role in “Southland Tales”, making it all the more of a shame that most people seem to be more interested in his later films when he changed his name and became a full time actor than these early films which only makes it more of a shame especially when they are missing out on the generally fun times this film provides, while it’s Indiana Jones style elements make me wish that it had gotten a sequel, but for now we have to contend with just this one adventure while being left to dream as to what could have been.

The Condemned

Title: The Condemned
Director: Scott Wiper
Released: 2007
Staring: “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Vinnie Jones, Robert Mammone, Madeleine West and Rick Hoffman
Rating: 2 / 5

Plot: Jack Conrad (Austin) is a convict awaiting execution in a Salvadoran prison. "Purchased" by a wealthy television producer and transported to a deserted island in the South Pacific along with nine other condemned criminals (similarly purchased from prisons around the world), they are "offered" the opportunity to avoid capital punishment and win back their freedom by fighting to the death in an illegal game to be filmed and broadcast live over the Internet.

Review: Since the release of “Battle Royale” it’s been followed by a whole host of assorted clones, each giving their own spin to the death match setup and since it’s release it’s also been hard not draw comparisons between that film and any other film, which bares even the slightest of similarities. Sadly the condemned fails to bring anything new to the table and instead gives us nothing but a below par action flick and a vehicle for one of the biggest and certainly most popular of WWE names “Stone Cold Steve Austin”.
The third film to be released by “WWE Films” following the enjoyable horror romp “See No Evil” (With Kane taking on monster duties) and the daft popcorn action flick, as well as direct to DVD feature “The Marine” (with John Cena & which already has a sequel in the works at the time of writing), The Condemned much like “The Marine” has a simple enough setup though one which sadly never lives up to its full potential, as our group of convicts, who the majority of which we never discover their reasons for their imprisonment are dropped off (literally in this case as they are thrown from the helicopter carrying them) on the island to hunt and kill each other off, with the story from this point quickly dissolving into what amounts to mainly filler between fight scenes, as we watch members of the production crew have doubts about the program, while arguing about how moral it is to have people fighting each other to the death in the name of entertainment??? Surely they should have thought about these kinds of things earlier you can’t help but wonder really. As well as this we get some lazy character development for Jack, revolving around his girlfriend watching the show in a bar and two FBI agents who are trying to locate the island, yet failing at the same time to achieve anything outside of having a stupidly large amount of meetings, to the point that I’m sure they are challenging “Star Trek – The Next Generation” for the title of the most pointless amount of meetings ever.
The fights sequences which after all are main selling point of the film, however frustratingly are often hard to follow thanks to the shaky close up way in which they are filmed with only a couple of fights escaping this style of shooting, which is even more of a shame when one of those fights isn’t the confrontation between Jack and “The Russian” (Played by big hulking guy for hire Nathan Jones) seeing how Nathan Jones has shown on several occasions in films such as “Warrior King” and “Fearless” that he can put on a decent fight scene, which would make it all the more exciting when you remember that Austin is after all a professional wrestler and more than capable of faking a fight sequence, but this is again ruined by the bizarre fighting style which they lumber Austin with, which see’s him fighting more like a boxer than his usual brawler style, which director Scott Wiper is quick to comment on in the special features on the disc, attributing this style to the fact his character is ex special forces, while meanwhile the groans of Stone Cold fans can be heard throughout the land.
The next real gripe with the condemned is Vinnie Jones, whose performance is nothing new and further adds to the opinion that like Danny Dyer, the only thing which changes with each of his roles is the scenery, with him once again in sweary yobbo mob mode, which might have worked the first couple of times the audience is exposed to it, but the more often I see him recycling the same style the more tiresome it becomes, much like when ever a character is ex military and British, they have to be Ex SAS, which surprise surprise is exactly what the character of Ewan McStarley is. Seriously why even have him as ex military, why not just make him a Mercenary or a killer or something alittle more original than just the Brit version of Austin’s character! As for the rest of the assembled convicts we are left to draw our own conclusions, as to who they are and what they did, with the few bits we are told being patchy at best, as they are pushed to the background, further adding to the opinion that their sole purpose is to add to the body count.

Looking at the Condemned now that I have bared witness to the hasty battle royale knock off it is, I am less than surprised that this film almost bankrupted WWE films and is a disappointing stumble, after two perfectly expectable films and makes me hope that future titles will keep Austin off the screen and in the ring were he works best, or at least give us the Stone Cold we all love and adore, rather than some hindered knockoff were as the less that we see of Vinnie Jones in this genre the better really.


On a final note this film was almost as painful to write about as to sit through and at various points I considered giving up on it, but that would have then meaning finding another film to watch in it's place and true this kind of movie is what I expected to find when I choose to hunt out bad movies, but The Condemned sadly enough fails on far to many labels to even be redeemable enough to recommend even to WWE fans.