Here's
the basic set-up for the slick martial arts film Never Back Down: Troubled teen moves with his
single mother to a new city, sets root in a humble apartment building, and
immediately gets picked on by the bullies at his high school. The chief bully
is highly skilled in chop-socky; he also happens to be dating the blonde who
has taken a liking to our hero. The kid then turns to a mysterious martial arts
master for training, under the condition that never, ever use his powers
outside the dojo… that is, unless he's really provoked or if there's some sort of score-settling
tournament coming up. Sound familiar? It's The Karate Kid for the 21st century, streamlined and hardcore,
which means there's lots of nü-metal sludge on the soundtrack, Djimon Hounsou
has replaced the flabby likes of Pat Morita, and the fighting style is
considerably less genteel than the one-legged crane.
Unfortunately,
the streamlining process has cut much of the underdog charisma away, too.
Instead of Ralph Macchio as a sweet-natured weakling from Jersey, Never Back Down offers up the chiseled likes of
Sean Faris, a soft-spoken bruiser who moves to Orlando with his widowed mother
and younger brother. O-town doesn't treat this fish-out-of-water too kindly,
especially after he sticks himself in the middle of a Fight Club-like subculture that practices
mixed martial arts (MMA). Accustomed to using only his fists, Faris finds
himself overmatched by the school bully (Cam Gigandet), who also rivals him for
would-be love interest Amber Heard's heart. Desperate for some leverage, Faris
learns the ins and outs of MMA from the enigmatic Hounsou, who employs the
ancient art of training by musical montage.
In
keeping with the Fight
Club theme,
there's a potentially interesting movie here about teenagers needing an outlet
for their boredom and pent-up aggression, and Never Back Down does a fine enough job painting
Orlando as a sprawling suburban hell-pit. But director Jeff Wadlow and
screenwriter Chris Hauty are so committed to following through on the Karate Kid formula that they don't care for
novelty; it's enough for them just to hit their cues and play up the slo-mo MMA
brutality. In the future, movies this derivative will be made by robots.