The Condemned

The Condemned is a movie that kinda come out of the blue to me one day. I had stumbled across it on IMDb and became excited to see it because it seemed like quite an interesting concept. It seemed like a nice action flick - but WWE, the people behind the stupid horror flick "See No Evil", were making it so I was a bit cautious as to what the outcome would be. Surprisingly, this movie has taken me by surprise and I can say that it is a great, fun action movie with great fight scenes, a nice plot and a lot more. The plot revolves around 10 prisoners on death row (including Stone Cold "Steve Austin" himself and Vinnie Jones) who are sent to an island in the middle of nowhere to fight each other to the death as it is broadcast online, leaving one survivor who leaves the island with freedom and a cash prize. The plot is actually the main thing that attracted me to see the movie. It sounds like "Battle Royale", which is a great flick, so it was great to hear a familiar idea bought to the screen again. It's not a stupid plot like it might sound to some people, but it's just a simple one and a fun one which doesn't require much thinking. Most of the fight scenes in the movie are great, and there's plenty of fights, action and explosions going on non-stop throughout the movie. The first few fights I'll admit are the better ones, but the others are good enough too and still entertaining to watch. I feel that certain characters in the movie are killed off rather too quickly though and some seem to disappear for a while, and then sooner or later get killed off the next time we see them again. The character development is good, but I do feel like we could have spent a little bit more time with one or two of them - mainly the women actually. The cast is good too, and provide good performances. Wrestler Steve Austin doesn't give the best performance but he is good enough. I feel some of his lines weren't delivered too great, but he does make a good action hero and delivers some good fight sequences for us to witness. I'm not going to blame the guy though as he isn't a professional actor and could have easily given a horrible performance but he doesn't. Vinnie Jones is, well, Vinnie Jones - the same old Vinnie Jones with the accent, gritting of the teeth and tough face - and yet still gives a good performance. Tory Mussett, who I had only seen in the terrible Boogeyman, also gives a good performance and this time round has a character to work with. The others are good too, and there's not one performance in the movie that I could say was bad acting. While The Condemned could have gotten a higher rating from me if it had had a few better fights and a bit more screen time for some characters, it hardly has anything negative about it. It's a great action movie with lots of explosions, fights and action to keep you entertained. Don't let the fact that it is made by WWE put you off the movie, it's a great action movie and definitely worth checking out if you want a great action movie to watch.