Never Back Down: No Surrender (2016)
Heavyweight Movie Bout
Back again we come to this franchise of mixed martial arts. I was interested to see how things would pan from the last movie and my mild complaints but overall entertainment. This one promises to be more focused as far as characters go, and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed the fights up to this point, so really our main reason to watch the movie has already given us no reasons not to. Tonight, we learn how many ways we quote Galaxy Quest in just the name of another movie, tonight we look at Never Back Down: No Surrender.
We follow our trainer fella from the last movie, as he’s been rounding the circuits some. There’s some friction between him and his manager, who want’s him to draw things out more to get more fights in. Well, the manager quits and as our trainer Case is leaving the ring, he runs into an old buddy. The two do some catching up after the match, and Case ends up getting picked up as a trainer for his buddy’s upcoming match against a psychotic meat-wagon the size of a house in a no-holds barred ring match owned by a slimy little creep who could care less what happens to anyone as long as his payout is huge. Our boy Case is trying his best, and there’s some butting heads here and there as well as making some new friends - but will he be able to get his buddy up to snuff to survive the match in time? This and other popular questions answered on act 3 of Never Back Down!
The story isn’t any more complicated than the other two movies in the series thus far. The second had the crazy idea to have about five main characters to thin out it’s story devotion time amongst them, where here we’ve focused down to two real main characters. Some of the side character get a little bit of time to have their moments, possibly some developments for a future episode of the franchise, or to serve as some form of relation building or deconstructing to play out in the plot. A good amount of the focus is around Case this time, and most of the side events of the movie help to add to the situation around him - be it romancing the agent lady or keeping his buddy out of trouble he shouldn’t be in. He even ends up with a bit of a fan club of younger gym-goers who convince him to let them be his students. Not everything - like the students - really pan out specifically for this movie, and I wouldn’t be surprise that it’s a set up for the next one, but the characters that are here do actually have some arcs to them. Okay, maybe not all of them, but the other trainer, the buddy, and the main all end up having a moment or two of growth to make them slightly different people by the end of the movie - it might not be major changes, but it’s always a bonus when you didn’t necessarily come into the story for it.
The actors do a good job here. If you aren’t supposed to like a person, you won’t. There’s a level of characters softening up from the start, and the actors play the chemistry for it pretty well. Occasionally some of the line deliveries might feel a bit bland or otherwise off, but it’s hardly close to some of the stuff that I’d consider bad. For the actors that need to get physical, they get the moves down pretty dang good. Probably helps that our main is skilled in martial arts to begin with, and pretty much just makes everything look easy. It’s also not just all action all the time - the fights that are in the movie feel like they belong in the movie, via training or actual planned match. The actors still help sell something like “fighting angry” or being in control of a situation as required, and overall the chemistry between the characters is sold quite well regardless of if it’s friendly or combative.
Couple of old pals.
Costumes aren’t really anything to brag about back home here - but that’s the eternal curse of a “modern movie” and making believable costumes. Settings likewise are rather similar - they are all believable, but in turn nothing stands out as being overly amazing despite the fact that it’s doing it’s job perfectly in doing so. There’s a swath of places regardless including the gym, a hotel room, a meeting room, and some other various external locations in Taiwan. The external spots are pretty nice to see as someone who doesn’t see them all the time. Overall, it’s well put together as far as sets and locations, and nothing quite as crazy as “underground” fight club locations with high schoolers or anything of that sort. Believably is good, and helps with the situations.
Action scenes are well done. Being arguably the main reason people will be showing up to the movie, it’s a good thing they are set up well. It’s clean and easy to understand, even if someone is getting flipped or rolled about. A fun part earlier on gives us a nice clean reference of what our trainer is planning on doing - which ties both his practicing and the current fight together in an almost explanatory way for viewers, but also allowing them to see the clean action as the practice move is just performed by the main before it snaps back to the effect part of cause and effect with the results in the fight. Although it’s certainly not need in the other parts and in fact does not return after that one scene, it’s a nice touch I wouldn’t mind seeing used more often to let you appreciate the form of things and tie it all in. The number of actual fights in this is less than some of the previous ones, partially on account of cutting out a bunch of anger-fueled young men and focusing much more on a budget Johnny Cage and our more focused Main character - so having them count and pay off when they happen is almost a necessity, especially with that final one. There isn’t quite as much technical ground play as there was in the others either - it feels far more like a standing fight with a few submissions thrown in, so that’s an added bonus in my opinion since it also means slightly less bundles of bodies rolling around in a mess to get lost with.
There is a bunch here as far as stuff the thoughtful could pick up and look into. I won’t tell you that it’s an absurd amount, but little things like how it ties philosophies or tactics mentioned earlier on in the movie come back around by the end are spread about. Some of this ends up sounding like something from a fortune cookie, like not being able to control yourself equaling not being able to control your situation, or an angry mind is a narrow mind. Other things are more dug into than just at surface level, usually panning from the interactions between characters, like sticking to your guns and morals or the potential hazards of fame. Some of it is even just effectively throw away lines that could be picked up and talked about, like privacy concerns and me-time in a socially connected world like the modern one. Again, most of it is potentially over-reaching in order to get to those talking points, but I feel most the folks that like to sink their teeth into stuff like that will have at least a few things they can take away from the movie besides the well done action scenes. It’s also perhaps not the most sensitive towards all things, like the lady-boy joke the alluded too wife-beating the main villain fighter gets up to - these aren’t things that bug me personally, but in this day and age I’m sure there’s some folks who might be more off put by it than my usually detachment from movie events asserts over me.
Bad board game loser.
Another good fight flick with the man M.J.W. It’s great to see these folks with action-oriented minds get the chances to take the time to make action into something more than just a laughable array of explosions. The story has it’s own things to tell, even if it’s not overly a super complex tale of intrigue - but it works quite well at focusing down on what it wants to tell for a story, and gets that across. It provides talented folks for the action, but also has an understanding of not just putting it in there for no reason at all. There’s a little bit of stuff that feels like it might just be setup for a different movie, but most of the movie doesn’t spend it’s time feeling like an unsupervised side trip to pad out runtime. The fights are cool, the main owns it, and it’s put together well - and the renewed focus on one character whose already a fighter helps solve a lot of the more negative or silly aspects of the previous movies without making the movie feel too entirely different from the rest of the franchise.