Cagefighter

Movie starts with a bit tacky fight and the commentators calling it 'one of the greats' but if commentators are known for one thing, that is to exaggerate or over-amplify situations or events. We are introduced to the protagonist Reiss Gibbons, he's a successful MMA wrestler and has a undefeated streaks with 5 championships. When Company promoter Max Black pits him against a pro wrestling superstar Randy Orton.... ohh Stone in the company's first ever cross-promotional event, he's reluctant at first but after seeing how confident and 'a clown' Randy is, he decided to fight him since it's going to make him easy money. Much to his surprise, when he's beaten black and blue by Randy and lose the championship. The media ridicule him and turn him to a 'meme'. Seeing that, he insisted on a rematch so that he could regain his championship and dignity back but is denied. Heartbroken, he ditches his team and flies to LA. After training there, he returns and fight Nightmare but his head isnn't in the game and is beaten again. He altogether quit wrestling. He goes brooding, and sulking until he finally gets an opportunity to fight Randy again, well from there the ending is pretty clear.

This movie is an ultimate underdog story that we've already seen in plenty other movies. The execution is not given any special treatment here but it's quite straightforward and entertaining. I think the highlight of the movie is the build-up to the first match, what I like about it, is that they make it seems as if it's a real-life match with interviews and video call form various legends across both WWE ohhh AEW and MMA. The match itself is tense and quite thrilling. Sadly, after the first match everything slows down and the plot goes the predicable zone. I enjoyed the performances most especially Jonathan Good as Randy Stone, he's over-the-top and overconfident and is somewhat hilarious in the way that he behaves. Alex montagnani as the titular character is Ok, but not memorable. Gina Gersam is a scene stealer, I loved every scene that she's featured in. The rest of the supporting casts provide good support. The camera work is slick, I particularly like the POV shots that shows how Reiss is feeling during the fights. The soundtrack is good and adds more energy to the scenes.

On the whole, Cagefigher is an enjoyable flick, it may not be original in terms story but it's overly entertaining, and that's what matters usually in these type of flicks.

I had never heard of this movie before. Only found about it a couple days ago, wich is 5 years after release. Jon Moxley (FKA Dean Ambrose) did an MMA movie? I had to watch that.

Now the funniest part is that he would be a lot more credible in this super badass vilain of pro wrestling role with his current look in the Deathriders. He got a lot more ripped. They keep saying how powerful he is in the movie and so on, but thats really 2020 Mox that is not that "impressive looking". But whatever...

So the movie follow a very conventional structure. Basically you saw this movie before only with different characters. But i don't think it was meant to be original. Sure adding some wrestlers and the idea of a wrestling champ challenging an MMA champ is the "little bit of originality" in it, but that do not play a huge part. The rest of the movie follow the same structure you seen a million time. But that does not mean it can't be entertaining.

Yes the fights are completely unrealistic and the referee would had end them 5x times before the actual end, but hey its a movie, and if you enjoyed Rocky receiving 120 punch to the face per movie, you can suspend your disbelief here too.

Speaking of 5 times, its a recurring thing in the movie that the MMA champ is a 5 times champion, but its actually that he defended the belt 5 times. It was kinda confusing at first and i tought it was an error in translation but reading other reviews it seem not, its like that in the original english version too.

The version i watched was in french and outside the main character and Gina Gershon wich were ok, most of the dubbing was awful, especially Mox and Christian Cage.

Overall it was a modest little fight movie that i had no idea existed and it gave me 90 minutes of alright fun with a couple beers. Nothing to write home about but decent enough.

One last thing... Its a little weird tough that they use AEW footage, some wrestlers play themselves, but then you have Jon Moxley (with litterally his trademark at the time Mox jacket) but he is call Randy Stone here? I guess they wanted to save on cost so it was easy to use old footage. But i do think they should had gave the wrestlers characters names.

Jon Moxley (Dean Ambrose) cuts some hilarious promos in-movie. Movie is a bit predictable and acting is not highest quality but Jon Moxley's acting was better than everyone else ( It was an easy role for him as he is a pro wrestler in real).

I guess this movie might be OK to watch if you're friends with any of the actors and you watch it as a "Fun thing" whilst getting hammered on beer and weed.

It was truly a rather boring and predictable movie, and the animations used in the fight scenes were just straight awful, like wtf.

Thank you for reading this banger of a review.

Maybe cinematography is not the best. But it is as good as should be in MMA movie. The characters are believable. The fights are good too. I felt the struggle. A decent movie that is worth a watch.