Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown (2011)

Powerful

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Whilst the first movie was the Karate Kid with anger issues this movie expands upon the premise set by those two movies and builds a likable group of characters.whilst most underdog fighter movies have a a trainer, the hero and the clear villain this films makes two of those elements unclear until the the last act of the film, mixing up the overused formula.each of the three protagonists comes from a different background each with there own problem and by the end of the film have put aside there differences and their problems to fight the antagonist.The main star and Director of the Movie Michael Jai White is fantastic in this film and goes to prove that it can be done even in this low budget movie, the fighting looks real and each of the characters feels real.the Only problems i have with this movie is that in some scenes i get two of the characters mixed up and that Michael Jai White is only in half of the movie, but he is fantastic in whatever scene he's in.A great movie better than the original by far.

The business side of movie-making dictates that the wider you cast your net, the more money you will make in return. This movie should be shown to anyone who subscribes to that theory as a cautionary tale.They literally tried to jam pack so many "can't miss" fight movie clichés into the script that by the end it sort of feels like Scary Movie 5 or something. I'm not even joking, it starts out solid, but half way through the movie when you notice they are just going to keep adding new story lines instead of developing the ones they've started I started scratching my head. Especially since the movie did just enough to not be rated PG-13. Literally, they could've deleted one flashing scene and not cursed so much and it probably would've been PG.I'm probably giving this movie a 5 only because my expectations were so low to begin with. If I'd of paid money and waited months to see this movie, I'd be irate! Especially since it could've been great if they'd of just scaled it back a bit. Having Todd Duffee in the movie may have seemed like a cool idea. But his WHOLE storyline is pointless and seems like an addition after the script was turned in. And that's on top of the fact that he's a garbage actor. You cut that WHOLE storyline, and devote that energy to further developing the two main characters stories and the movie may have been good enough to go to theaters.The ending needed changing as well. I'm guessing they were over budget and just needed to wrap things because it feels extremely rushed and anti-climatic. Hello... no one thinks the bad guy is going to win in this kind of movie, so how about not relying on selling us on that, and instead doing something dramatic. Bad guy should've sucker punched the boxer with the messed up eye, and the wrestler should've taken his revenge using something he learned and won the tourney. Pretty much the ending to Gladiator. In closing. If you're looking for a serious movie with substance, save your time. If you're an MMA fan that just wants to see some cool fighting, then maybe watch this movie if nothing else is on.

I went in to this film expecting another great movie like the original.Well i was very disappointed.Michael Jai White is a decent actor and i enjoyed watching him in Universal Soldier:The Return.In this film he certainly is no Mr Miyagi.The other characters were not the best of actors to be honest.The fighting was decent enough though and i enjoyed all the M.M.A action.I enjoyed the story bringing in different characters and backgrounds in M.M.A.I would recommend only watching this if you are bored or pick it up in the bargain bin at your local video store.And the scene where they train one fighter by punching a piece of paper has got to be the worse scene in a movie ever.This should have never been made.I guess some things really do look better on paper.

I never saw NEVER BACK DOWN, but this sequel features Michael Jai White so it was a must see for me. Four kids from varied backgrounds get training advice from down-on-his-luck former MMA star and now ex-con Case Walker (White). You have Tim (former UFC fighter Todd Duffee), a college student trying to help make ends meet for his single mom; Zack (Alex Meraz), a former boxer who just had a humiliating loss that resulted in a career ending eye injury; Justin (Scottie Epstein), the comic book geek looking to get revenge on the guys who beat him up; and Mike (Dean Geyer), a college freshman wrestler who falls for Zack's girl and is dealing with the fact that his father left his mom for another man (really!). Can you guess which character ends up going rogue and using his violent tools for bad? They all learn how to enhance their previous skills (boxing, wrestling) in order to become well-rounded mixed martial artists for the upcoming Beatdown show produced by Max (Evan Peters, apparently the only connection to the first film).Heading direct-to-video, this sequel apparently hits all the same notes as the first film. The drama, for the most part, is very standard stuff, although I did find Case's personal history to be well down. In addition to the lead role as the trainer, Jai White also made his directorial debut here. The man definitely knows his martial arts and should be commended for not only the (mostly) realistic action and training, but also imparting some wisdom in terms of the discipline's mental aspects (watch for a funny bit where he quotes Bruce Lee). He seems to have learned a lot from directors like Isaac Florentine and doesn't cheat during the brawls. It also helps that he had Epstein, who is a black belt in jiu-jitsu, and Eddie Bravo, former UFC commentator and inventor of the rubber guard at 10th Planet, serving as technical consultants for the fights. Of course, you have to take the good with the bad and there are also some more "cinematic" fights. White also has a bizarre love for montages featuring the blandest of generic white boy rock. The acting is pretty good all-around, with surprisingly strong performances from martial artists Epstein and Duffee. I say that after nearly two decades of watching MMA fighters embarrass themselves on film. Look for current UFC light heavyweight Lyoto Machida in a small role as himself.