Fight Valley

I agree that this is a poorly made film in almost all its aspects. Frankly, I don't care. I'm tired of everyone reviewing every film as if it were 'Chariots of Fire'. I couldn't stand that 4-star, Oscar winning piece of over-hyped dribble. 'Attack of the Killer Tomatoes', 'Showgirls' or 'Devil Dog, Hound from Hell' received an overrated 1- star. Cheap and shallow has its place and mindless entertainment is exactly what you want at times. Effort was put into this project and you can't take that away.

As a fan myself, I just felt the need to give this title a chance. What I found was beyond disappointing. A cast of AMAZING female fighters with not one good fight scene. Like hiring a crew of stunts and filming them laying on a couch for 90 min. The plot is dull, the acting makes you cringe. A nice movie to stare at our beloved girl warriors in costume, nothing else. 10/10 not worth it.

I read the reviews before watching the movie so I knew it was gonna be bad, but because Miesha Tate was on it I had to watch it. I'm a big Miesha Tate fan and a huge MMA fan. It also stars Cris Cyborg and Holly Holm (I think, didn't see much of her in the movie...) so I watched it.

But it all went wrong. Nothing worked. I'll not go into every detail saying this was bad because and that didn't work because here, and strangely, the correct and polity thing is to say that it all failed.

The viewer struggles to watch the movie, the first half of the movie pushes the inner will of power of the viewer to its limits not to do the logical thing which is just stop watching that thing that is on the screen. It's so bad and illogical and so badly made and so totally nonsense that you almost match Miesha's will of power when the grabbed Holly Holm on that rear neck choke when she won the UFC title, holding on to it and not letting go no matter what. Yes, the viewer really must hold on to his will to watch this entire 'movie', he has to be like a pit bull on a bone. ;)

And the second half of it doesn't get better. At all.

People can say it's a low budget movie, but the budget was 27 million US dollars. That's not a low budget and could never be an excuse for this to be as badly made as it is and as bad as it is. Have you ever watched Elite Squad (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0861739/)? It was made with 4 million US dollars! Seven times less than that!!!

I'll be honest, everyone involved in this thing (it's very hard to call it a movie) should not be a thousand miles near the movie business again, ever again. As for the actors, I know the script and the directing were, how should I say this politely, zero on the scale from 1 to 10, but still, the actors involved must work on their acting skills a lot.

So I gave it a 4 out of 10. I was very generous, I overrated it because Miesha Tate is on it.

Plain simple it is rubbish! Awful acting, awful story (what story?) but awful FIGHT SCENES. Common people they're UFC fighters and it was just so bad i had to laugh. waste of time to watch! Big Miesha Tate fan as a person and a UFC fighter and her looks are the only positive i can say about this movie. I've seen better movies on YouTube so go figure. It makes me wonder how someone is able to make such a thing? I mean, somebody actually put effort in this movie thing. And this is the best you can do? Not blaming the actors, cos most of them aren't actors but UFC fighters. So i understand they want to participate in a movie and they think ow that's fun to do and try. but from the director to anyone creatively involved, please go find another job cos your not made for the movie industry.

Please skip this movie and spend you time on anything but watching this.

Let me first say, the only reason I wanted to watch this movie is because I'm a fan of WMMA as well as Miesha Tate and Holly Holm; so naturally I wanted to see how both would do in their feature film debut's. The verdict? They are better fighters than they are actors and that's clearly evident in this film.

To give my review some cred; I graduated from film school, have written numerous feature scripts, directed numerous shorts and short films and have taken acting lessons so I know how to make a film from script to screen (production through post).

That being said, this film is definitely high on the list of poorly made films.

Acting - nearly all the performances are stilted, stiff and lifeless. At times you can tell the actor is just waiting for their scene partner to finish their lines so they can say theirs; versus "being in the moment" and actually listening to what their scene partner is saying and evoking a real reaction. Additionally a lot of the performances are dramatic for the sake of being dramatic with no apparent motivation (called over acting). Everything must be motivated.

Dialogue - seems very contrived and often the dialogue is pointless and irrelevant. There's also too much of it. Film as a medium is primarily visual; i.e. you can still convey a message without speaking a word. Watch Don Cheadle, he's one of the best at doing that. Sometimes in a scene you just need to let it breathe and allow the viewer to consume what is happening rather than force feeding them dialogue non stop.

Writing - like the acting the dialogue is very stilted and contrived. I lost count on the numerous plot holes and setups without any payoff (screenwriting 101). One major plot hole is that none of the girls who "have to fight to survive" have any plan to better themselves, no plan to get out of there and make their life better. By doing that, I as a viewer couldn't care less about the characters because they don't care about themselves. The whole purpose of characters in a film is for the viewer to ride along with the characters along their journey. None of the characters have a transformational change in the film (even the main character which is highly unusual). Where's the character arcs? One major plot hole is the training of Windsor to eventually fight whoever killed her sister; but when the scene comes she doesn't fight her, Jabs fights her. Why build that up and not pay it off? As a viewer I feel let down. I was led to believe that Windsor would fight Church. Another example of setup with no pay off is Holly Holm's character. Animosity is created between her character and Miesha Tate's but then nothing comes of it. We never see her again after their confrontation in the bar. Why initiate that if you're not going to follow it through especially with a high profile fighter/star like Holly Holm.

Directing - There seems to be scenes of drama and emotion and/or hostility for no apparent reason. One minute a character is mad at another then all of a sudden they are completely calm, seems very unnatural. There's also issues with the blocking of the actors and framing issues (rule of thirds).

Technical - Bad and fake fight choreography. The actors take larger than life swings which look totally fake. Watch 'Bourne Identity' to see fight choreography done correctly. The audio mix in this is very poor; effects come in hot one minute, then too low the next minute (static shot of house, crickets are nearly distorting). Music is too low, dialogue cuts off from one scene to the next, there are scenes with dialogue out of sync, the volume goes up and down, etc.

According to the IMDb page the budget on this was $27,000,000 which has to be a typo because I find that extremely hard to believe based on the poor production quality. However their are some great aerial and crane shots in this so possibly that's where the majority of the budget was spent.

The reason I'm so critical is not to be demeaning or rude, or judgmental, but rather provide food for thought to those who desire to make films and encourage them to put out their best work. Don't put out crap, put out the best thing you can in anything you do. No one likes to see crap and this is pretty close to that.