User Reviews

The movie has more going for it than the previous one in 2008. The 'sensei', Case Walker, this time is none other than Michael Jai White, who also directed the movie. Sure, White is no Djimon Hounsou as acting goes, but he has much acting experience and far better credentials as martial artists than most who play such roles. He did quite well in his first time directing and I suspect will direct more movies in the future. These two factors coupled with the fact that he is well grounded, smart and a good role model in real life helps make the movie a good one, in the genre. His fighting scenes are excellent, his notably different character than that of Hounsou was a well calculated smart choice. By the way, he produced and starred in the 2009 Blood and Bone, a movie to watch if you like movies with good fight scenes.

This sequel has not one star student of Case, but four, for all of who, the movie provides a background, sub-plot and fairly equal play time. That again was an improvement over the initial movie. It was probably a good idea not to bring back the Tom Cruise look alike Sean Faris because that aspect invites unwanted criticism ( bad rap for Faris whose as good as Cruise was at that age.) The only character to be featured in both movies, 2008 Never Back Down and this 2001 sequel, is Max Cooperman played by Evan Peters. He looks a little older but his character retained his unhealthy passion for mixed martial arts fights.

There are annoying sub story lines repeated from the first movie; and that should have been avoided. Specifically, how the character of Mike is prone to fits of anger followed by fighting when any reference to his father is brought up. It was unnecessary and makes the movie appear to lack in originality. Other than that the viewers who like the occasional fight movie, will be satisfied.

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.

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 started to watch this movie with part "one" in mind.

Part one for me was like a fighting-style instead of dancing "Step-up", "You Got Served", boys falls in love with girl kind of movie. But then with MMA scene in them, instead of dancing. Part "two" is no different. But you can't really say that this is a part two other then the character "Max" and a few references throughout the movie.

The start of the movie the first thing you'll notice is the bad acting (dialogues) After a while it gets somewhat better, but still annoyed me throughout the movie.

I kept watching but i wasn't trilled by the cracking of the bones. They should've used the first movies effects on that. However the fighting-scenes did look good, but what almost every directer does is make the camera movie all over the place when a fight starts. Something i hoped this time would be different. The story-line is OK can't say i liked it, can't say i disliked it; lets just say i watched till the end. The story follows 4 fighters, but sometimes it felt like they just needed to fill the movie between the fights/training-scenes.

Overall the movie is OK if you like to see MMA fights, combined with the typical "step-up" "you got served" kind of story line.

This movie is Facebook meets MMA. There's even a lead character in the movie that curiously resembles Mark Zuckerberg. To break this horrible film down simply, it revolves around a college 'beat down' tournament organized by the Mark Zuckerberg character. A bunch of freshman want to compete in the tournament for their own very personal reasons - for example, one kid's dad left his mom for another man...whoa!! There aren't many fight scenes, which was really disappointing. What really put the crappy icing on the cake for me was the MMA Master Trainer. He's a typical black ex-con type, and guess what? He lives in a trailer on an abandoned property. He can't afford a place of his own, so all he does is train and fight. How predictable can it get??

THE BEATDOWN is the second instalment of the NEVER BACK DOWN series. The good news is that Michael Jai White is back, the bad news is that he's only in the supporting mentor role, although as tough as ever. He gets about one decent fight scene and that's it. I'm guessing most of his time on set was taken up with his directorial duties, but the direction is nothing other than extremely ordinary, unfortunately. The film is full of new young blood characters seeking to build names and reputations for themselves, but it's all very predictable and the fight scenes veer towards the routine rather than impressive. Final verdict? A B-movie that we could have done without.

What a bore!! I sat down to watch it with a lot of expectations.But it proved me terribly wrong.It showed what not to expect. It stands no where near the prequel.Micheal Jay White looks his hunky best as the trainer with his cool bod.

Watch it only for the fight sequences because nothing actually makes sense except a bunch of guys kicking each others asses for some random reason.Basically, this movie doesn't make any sense.If you hit the theaters make sure you have something else to entertain you during the run time because you never know when you will walk out. A director can be an actor but an actor can't be a director. This movie proves the point.All in all this movie wasn't a winner for me. I wait for something to happen and there it goes down the drain !! nothing turns up!