Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown (2011)
Featuring UFC and MMA fighters
Hot on the heels of last weeks movie, I get to the actual requested movie for the week - but I had to see the first one to know, you know. Well, turns out I really didn’t need to see the first one to know, but now I can compare the franchise to itself as I go, and that’s the writers version of free real estate. Throw down with those mixed martials, it’s time to come back to The Beatdown.
Technically, Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown, but for dramatic effect I opted for just the designation instead. Anyways, this story has a single character from the last one - our camera-centric fight lover Max. The only other thing to return to the movie is the main even for which the title gets it’s bonus - the beatdown. We connect with a new cast past that, with four new main character chumps and their one glorious sensei. It’s a lot of stuff to fit in - you know, each character getting their own personalities and story. If I’m being honest, you might care about two or three of them from a personality standpoint. Our “main” main has some family issues that we get filled in on as things go on, and has the hots for another guys girlfriend. We then have a semi-pro boxer whose major drama is he might lose his vision if he gets punched in the face again - which is fine as a hook until his personality is kind of garbage and overall likability due to plot events spirals downwards as the movie goes on. We have the big-old might as well be country boy who is just overall a pretty sensible guy and looking out for his mom and the likes. We have the emo shopkeep who gets stabbed and goes on an arc to toughen up, but might have some instability issues. Of course, we then get our teacher, whose got some sort of history but not a whole lot is there before the movie progresses a good ways. Of course, all of this training and fighting is going on around the upcoming Max-hosted Beatdown event, so some foul play leads to a big target in the finals, and it’s just a matter of watching along to see how it all comes about.
Characters are mostly alright. Each character has a decent enough of story put into them - and even if you don’t like one it would probably be fair enough to say that it’s on purpose and the characters are done well because of it. That said, I do feel the first movie and it’s more laser-focused character set played out a little bit better than this one, and it’s character motivations played out better towards the final battle because of it. Towards the end, one character feels like they have progressed as a person - and largely that’s less to do with the fighting and more to do with their relationship - and one feels like they really went south. The ladies largely take a back seat in this movie - the one that’s in it a decent amount offers a decent amount of chemistry and some wise words here and there, but is also used as a bit of a love triangle that doesn’t really get used all that much anyways.
The actors, in contrast to the characters, do a great job. If someone is supposed to come off as a cocky dingus, this Tom Holland look-alike will nail it. You need someone that you aren’t entirely sure if they are being slow and thoughtful like your mountain of a country friend you got it. Even our Emo guy nails that quiet danger of someone going nuts. You’ll most likely find yourself wanting to spend more time with one over the others when it comes to the characters, but it does provide for multiple spark-notes stories that the actors can bring to life in their own way - be it quiet and to the point or laughable banter. Chemistry between the characters is good enough as well, and a few times it will click much better than others. Even our one come-back character gets to have a nice moment of growth with our teacher character, allowing for both of them to feel like they aren’t there just to get the name on the title. The two big name fighters on the box though, I’m pretty sure they are just there to get the name, but that’s what it is.
Sensei
In fairness, I’m sure a lot of people aren’t approaching this for elaborate characters and finely woven plot threads. While those elements serve their purposes for setting up drama and conflict most the time, most people are probably more interested in the fight-side of things. Part of this could be the side elements of martial arts flicks - the classic character growth through learning to focus on the enemy within, the learning to stand up for oneself through combat confidence, that sort of thing you know? Other folks are totally just here because they want to see some skulls cracking. It takes a good while to get to the fights in earnest for this one - our characters aren’t really prone to just violent outbursts in the same was as our last movie’s main. It’s mostly a lot of training and training fights filling up the runtime, leaving the actual full on time-taken fights to take place in the ring at the final 20 of the flick. That said, the training segments are good, and shows a good reason for any sort of bonding between the students and or the teacher. They also get used to slowly ramp up the potential mental state troubles of the emo character - which only starts to become even more accentuated after he shaves those lovely emo locks off. The final fights are good stuff, with a mix of technical floor rolling (“ground game” for those who watch UFC and the likes) and some pretty heavy hits. Every now and then it feels like perhaps people are pulling some punches or flailing a little - but it is a movie and the name of the game at the end of the day is for actors and stunt people to go home unhurt, so I don’t hold it against the movie nor does it really feel like it breaks immersion.
The soundtrack is much of what you’d expect, cutting in some of those hard rock and numetal style songs that never get old and always end up on the gym lists. I don’t recall a lick of it after the movie, as is my curse, but it’s there and solid. There was one moment where it played this really soft instrumental piece that sounded like a ringtone almost, and I felt that was a little bit out of place in the scene it took place - lending it t feel almost like some horror movie setup - but I don’t remember really being angry at any of the music that was taking place. Part of that is most likely everything being balanced well - no problems hearing lines here, even if they take place in a strip club. Did I not mention the fact that a lot of this movie actually takes place in a strip club? It’s mostly either gym, outdoor gym, or strip club. They are all distinct from each other, for sure, and given they aren’t really the focus of things it’s not really to any detriment of the movie. I will say that the fact our new main and boxer look somewhat similar to me did get me slightly confused during the opening movie where it’s somewhat whipping back and forth between different characters and what’s going on with them without me having even really be introduced yet to know why I’m there. It works in retrospect, but might be somewhat hard to follow for some. Don’t worry though, the two different sex scenes will give you a breather to catch up. As a dude who watches the crap out of horror movies all the time, and will be the first to admit that sometimes the only good thing in a bad movie was a gorgeous lady strutting what her momma gave her, I’ll also point out that these scenes honestly felt sort of pointless and like padding. You could argue the second was a bonding moment sort of thing - the “love winning” sort of situation - but the first was overly not doing anything to add to the movie besides giving you the perfect moment for someone to walk in on you and make an awkward situation if that sort of thing still embarrasses you.
When it comes to comparisons between the two, it at times can be rough. The first one felt much more like a dedicated drama about one guy and his family, and the way that martial arts taught him to get over that rage and become a better person, and it had a very defined bad guy to help kickstart that fighting journey. Here, our main character has anger issues over the situation his dad put the family in, but his big draw to enter the fight is just because he can. Our boxer has to risk loosing his vision if he keeps boxing, so instead decides to go into mixed martial arts - and his only real growth angle is coming to terms with loosing his vision if he keeps fighting. It’s a bit of a throw away character really. Our big country-fed mountain of a man is already training with the teacher and has no real drive to the fight until the final setup period - prize money to help out his mom with the bills would have been an easy reason to get him there, but I don’t remember it ever being throw out there, and considering he’s probably my favorite character because he genuinely seems like the nicest character in the movie, it’s a bit of a shame. Then shop worker starts off in the classic underdog bully position - turned down by the girls, mugged by a bunch of hooligans and stabbed with a knife - and you start off rooting for him, but he has that evil kung fu character twist to him where it all starts going south after he finally starts achieving some of that power. It helps give that “dangers of” edge to the movie, and maybe giving watchers who like to think about stuff one more avenue to approach for essays on things like mental health. Course, with the rag-tag crew, there’s a lot that could be found for folks like that - racism, corruption and inadequacies of the law system, healthy outlets for emotions, natural disasters and the likes - but none of it really ever feels like it’s super duper deep case studies as much as dangling paper your are trying to punch through perfectly.
The cleaning crew
It’s a good movie, but in all honesty I would have to say that it’s a step down from the first. It’s not bad by any means, and it’s pretty well put together for the most part, but I don’t think everything at work really plays as finely oiled as it did the first time around. It’s not low-effort, so it doesn’t feel like an absolute cash grab, but it also feels like someone maybe only had the most general of ideas and decided to just go ahead with it and flesh it out as they went. Sometimes it works really well, and sometimes it feels like you missed out on something that could have been much more impressive if only a little more time was spent there. Either way, it’s not a bad watch as a stand alone thing - and given it’s absolutely loosest ties towards continuity attachments to the first movie, this is one of those sequeles that you could easily watch without having seen the first and not missed a darn thing. I’ll be interested to see where the franchise goes with the third movie, which looked like it might focus down much more on the teacher character, and just how much that in turn ties to the events of this movie.