Never Back Down: No Surrender

The first conclusion is more than simple - Michael Jai White deserved his movie from Never Back Down series and the last minutes of preview part suggested very clear the birth of this one.

In same measure, more than martial art , a good point of this film is the try to create a coherent story, from romance to the rvalries conciliated by common interest, different fight styles . And , sure, different relation with antagonist.

And exactly this effort to offer more than fair option for fights fans gives some value to this film who is correct crafted, interesting acted and has not so bad dialogues ( or plot ).

In short , a surprising nice work , more serious than pretext for impressive kickboxing scenes.

I enjoyed a lot the first one back then, surprisingly even tough it had an Hollywood cast and was very commercial i loved it. Amber Heard... oh boy... lol. The second one came as a good surprise and i enjoyed it again a damn lot. The character of Case Walker was good but so was the other ones as well.

It was inevitable that the third movie would focus on Case, after all Michael Jai White is a huge name in the martial art style and the story of the kids from the second movie was wrapped up.

So when the trailer drop, i was a bit surprised. I mean it didn't looked as good as i had in mind for the next step in Case Walker story. But after having seen the movie, i do feel the movie is a lot better than the trailer. By a lot. Good action, solid character development, the story is engaging even tough a bit less personal than in previous movies. Non the less Michael Jai White make it work super great. The only thing that people may have a grip with, just like i do, is that the movie lacks a great antagonist. The battle is not personal on that level. I don't want to go into a spoiler review so i will not say more, but lets just say that the focus in clearly on the main characters and there relationship together. He does work very good tough.

In the end i had a ton of fun with that movie, its movies like that i am waiting for and i welcome so much the release once in a while. Its like 90s kickboxing movies goodness but at the same time with better direction, better acting, betting production value as a whole.

I do not know the budget for this movie, but for a direct to DVD (not even blu ray, at least here in Quebec) its damn impressive what they accomplished. Fans of martial art action, give it a shot for sure.

It's a great action movie with some amazing action scenes, but the problem is that feeling of there is acting going on , that wont let you to live the movie, I'm not sure if choosing Josh Barnett to play Brody James was a good choice at all, however the other actors did just fine, Michael Jai White did his magic as usual. The whole idea of never back down always impressed me , cool fight scenes and giving moral to the story the action that's going on, and having a goal to achieve , working hard for it, therefore if you are looking for a good action movie this one will be just fine for you, don't expect much.

This is absolutely a paint-by-numbers martial arts competition flick, and standard fare for fans of its star, Michael Jai White. Or JCVD; or Scott Adkins, et. al. But after you've slogged through the main body of the production, the climactic sequence nets you a big overall win for your temporal investment. That reward begins with a truly unique and amusing cameo as a lead-in to the inevitable Big Fight all the typical character arcs and tepid dialog have been setting up. Often it ain't about what they do, but how they do it. Coffee for the closers.

What a nice surprise. Michael Jai White did excellent work. He managed to refrain from unnecessary Hollywood-overkill and instead just told a story that flows nicely and rewards the viewer with some spectacular fight scenes. It's actually a bit understated. A rare thing to find these days. I'll give you an example. During the finale of Hard Target 2 all I could think of was: My God, does the shooting never stop? What could have just been a gritty survivalist martial arts movie, had to be made into an over-the-top action vehicle. But it didn't look like the production crew had the money or experience to pull their ideas off. It just ends up looking disappointing. Thankfully, Michael Jai White had no illusions about his project.

Not everything about this movie was top notch. But it just seemed to work for me. I got exactly what I needed. And maybe you will too. I hope MJW will be involved in many more good projects like this one.