doc_old55

I thought seriously about this, and concluded that the first step would be to remove the viewer choices. The concept is flawed and the implementation is juvenile.

Apart from the "viewer bad decision loops", the story seemed OK, but they would have done better to tell the story AS a story, and not some fake "your decisions determine the outcome", because, like the story itself, you actually have no control over what form the story takes. You just keep getting shoved backward until you make the decisions that the writers want you to make.

I was originally going to give this show 3 stars, but as I said, the story itself is solid, so I added a star for that, and though i thought the concept was novel and interesting at first, that wore off as soon as I had to decide what cereal the kid was going to have for breakfast.

I don't know why this show has so many positive reviews, apparently many viewers are not as easily annoyed as I am, but I'd like to see their reactions after seeing another dozen or so shows of this type.

I am rarely tempted to review a movie, but in this case I am willing to stick my neck out.

Although this movie had me watching until the end, it was with a good deal of frustration. I am a one-time martial artist and a keen fight spectator, and in my opinion, the fight scenes in this movie were not (for the most part) up to snuff. I'm not saying that the fighters were amateurs, it was the choreography that annoyed me. Many of the moves and techniques seemed to be used simply for the looks, and not for authenticity. Without going into specifics (I don't want to give away spoilers) the were a lot of very poor choices of hold/grapple/blow that you simply would not see in real competition. The very experienced Ernie Reyes Sr. dropped the ball on this one.

Another bug-bear was the music being that it was way too loud in some places, actually drowning out the dialogue, and inappropriate in other places.

Having said all that, I thought the acting was good for the most part, and in particular one scene featuring John Savage and Ki Reyes (Oscar), which had my partner tearing up.

In summary, I would not recommend this for anyone who just wants to see an MMA movie, and also not for the hard of hearing:) I'd rather rent 'Redbelt' or 'Never back down'.