Knockout

First of all, I can tell you what this movie is in one sentence - The Karate Kid, with no swearing, no karate, and no one who really cared...with a little dash of Rocky.

Knockout is a low-budget, TV movie for the family channel knockoff of the karate kid, just with Boxing replacing Karate. And if you haven't seen The Karate Kid, i strongly suggest you watch it (The '84 edition and it's '86 sequel are great coming-of-age films.) before watching this. Trust me, you don't want to watch this first, then karate kid and call Karate kid "A good rip-off" of Knockout.

Matt Miller (Daniel Magder) is a 15-year old who is thrust out of his comfortable life to go to Aldergrove, a small, nowhere special type of town. (Actually, Aldergrove is a neighborhood in Langley, British Columbia, less than an hour's drive away from my hometown.) His mother has started a new life after her husband has left the family, and it's not clear whether he is dead or it was a divorce, but if it's a rip-off of TKK, most likely he has died. Upon entering school, Matt makes 2 friends and thanks to a dare from one of them, he makes an enemy of school jock, Hector, who also happens to be a boxing prodigy. As Hector repeatedly harrasses and bullies Matt, the school Janitor, Dan Barnes (Stone Cold Steve Austin) becomes aware of it, and winds up training Matt to fight to protect himself.

Yep, it's karate kid through and through. Matt Miller is Daniel LaRusso, Dan Barnes is Mr. Miyagi, Hector is Johnny, Ruby is Alie, and Coach Harward is Kreese.

First of all, the acting is really bad. While you may think since Stone Cold Steve Austin is a good actor, he might have carried the film? Sure. He's the best actor in the movie, and he was phoning it in pretty much the whole time. It's almost as if the director was scared to ask him to re-shoot his scenes in fear of Austin walking off the set thinking it was a waste of his time.

Or maybe he was scared of SCSA giving him a stone cold stunner and drinking a steveweiser over his fallen carcass.

The main star, Daniel Magder, has about as much skill in acting as a pornstar does. He's either overacting, or not acting well enough. He can't get that balanced throughout the movie. his banter with SCSA feels like he's reading it off the script and it doesn't come off natural. His arguements with his mother and father are hardly believable. I can see why this guy got roles with shows on the family channel.

But by far, the worst part is the script. It's one of the most skeletal, vanilla flavored, boring scripts I can think of. And when i say vanilla, i mean the supermarket-branded vanilla flavored ice cream. It's not as good as the breyer's or the chapman's brand. Every word, phrase is either cliche or laughable. (Seriously, How many high school kids call someone a birdbrain?) And remember how i said "family channel" film? How can you give a role to SCSA without him saying any H-E Double hockey sticks or those things beavers build?

So why did I buy this movie for 3 dollars at a Dollarama? Because Stone Cold Steve Austin was on the cover.

2/10

Well lets start with the positive. The budget was 9mil. For 9 mil it actually looks decent. Editing cuts are late at times, but simply done which is refreshing from the quick paced clipping action scene cuts we get in the every big budget movie. With what they had to work with I guess its OK.

Stone Cold Steve Austin was the best actor in the flick. Hector the bully did a nice job for what he was working with. The main character is painful to watch in this role. I don't want to bash the kid but a boxer he is not, awkward he is, but in all the wrong ways. The mother is 4 out of 10 and the rest of the cast is blah. The girl the main character falls for has a unique look so she can get a bonus point, blah +1, might like to see her again in a better part to decide.

Script is weak, directing is off, sets look decent, make up not good and effects... there are none. It feels like it's an after school special from the 80's without the warmth or the character development. Somehow the movie did have heart though. I'll attribute it to the main character and Steve Austin standing up for what is right.

My big issue here is that it is a boxing movie and our lead character can't even throw a punch. I mean who the heck did the casting? Did the kids dad pay for the movie? It looks like he just put his xbox remote down and went on set. I really have to stress that the child can literally not throw a normal jab, hook, or any normal looking punch, and has no athletic ability. The main fight looks is like watching 2 tards throw haymakers at each other and for 5 minutes. OK I am harsh but there are so many talented kids out there how could he get the part. He should be cast as an awkward science geek genius that figures out a mathematical way to rob banks. That would be more convincing, but I doubt there will be a future for him in the movie industry.

Like the other guy said this makes Breakin 2 Electric Boogaloo look like Oscar material. :)

I thought this was a really good movie but alot of people didn't seem to like it

Well this is a story told lots of times , the underdog that comes out alright in the end .And it feels a bit like the karate kid goes boxing . And I'm not really a Steve Austin fan .

But strangely enough it works . The story while not original kept me , and that's saying a lot . The box-kid is an interesting character so is Steven Austin as coach . Austin is not a great actor , but he makes up to it with attitude and stature . And in my opinion keeping it real was smart .

Not much else to say , I enjoyed it , but nothing to write home about . While I think it appeals mostly to teens , its not a bad movie for any age , and I for one like the "you can do it if u set your mind to it " message .

This was a good movie and change of pace for Austin not his typical action adult movie, he gave the kid some hope and a goal. Good movie for teens