Never Back Down (DVD, 2008, 2-Disc Set)

I liked this film better when it was titled 'The Karate Kid'. Sure, there is nothing new under the sun and every film borrows something from other films that have come before it, but this film borders on copyright infringement.

If I had to write a Karate Kid summary in 3 sentences, this is what I would write:

Kid moves to a new town. Kid gets the living crap beaten out of him by the town bad boy. Kid starts some heavy duty Karate training so he can get revenge by kicking the bad boys ass while simultaneously winning the heart of the hottest girl in town.

Now, if I had to write a summary for Never Back Down in 3 sentences it would be as follows:

Kid moves to a new town. Kid gets the living crap beaten out of him by the town bad boy. Kid starts some heavy duty Mixed Martial Arts training so he can get revenge by kicking the bad boys ass while simultaneously winning the heart of the hottest girl in town.

The plot is literally exactly the same. The only difference is that when it came to the soundtrack they replaced Peter Cetera with nu metal in the vein of Linkin Park.....and the most pivotal characters in this film were cell phones.

People have commented that the fight scenes were pretty good. I tend to disagree. They were....down right boring. Instead of watching this film just watch the Karate Kid and have a computer handy. When the fight scenes are on in the Karate Kid, just turn away and watch some UFC fights on Youtube. You'll have practically the same film as Never Back Down....just much, much better.

I do respect the fact that they were able to jam every 80's film cliché into just over 90 minutes. It is impossible to spoil the content of this film as everybody has already seen it (at least 1000 times) with a different title.

Will the good kid defeat the bad kid in a no holes barred fight? Who knows? Well, actually, everybody knows.