The Condemned

This was WWFs third feature put out, and this one starred Steve Austin. Basically, its the Running Man, updated with some changes. 10 death row inmates from around the world are bought by a sleezy television producer, and they have 30 hours to fight to the death on an island, and the last man/woman standing goes free. They all have ankle bombs attached to them so if they try to pull em off, they explode, and if all aren't killed by the end of the alloted time, they explode.

On to the movie. Personally, I thought it was pretty entertaining throughout. Austin, in his first featured roll, came off pretty good for what he was, and that was the bad ass, no bullshit good guy. The action starts pretty much right away, and surprisingly, they didn't hold much back in this.

Decent enough action sequences, although this movie is a victim of the absolutely horrible frantic camera work/quick edits during fight scenes to make things seem crazier than they are. So some of the fights were hard to follow, but the action itself was pretty good.

The story itself was interesting enough too. The TV guy really came off like a douchebag, and you wanted something bad to happen to him. I was compelled throughout, to see where things were going, and the added factor of the FBI trying to find out where the online broadcast was coming from added another factor to it as well.

Maybe I am biased, but I was a fan of the story for other reasons as well, as I had come up with something similar a few years back that a couple of people got to read, and I saw this with Tommy, and afterwards he said it reminded him of the script I wrote. I agreed, so it was sorta cool seeing something similar done and getting to watch it, even though it wasn't mine and I didnt get paid for it.

Vinnie Jones was in it as the main villain, and he was cool enough. He comes off like a prick too, so when his showdown comes up at the end, I wanted to see him get his face kicked in.

WWF took a lot of slack and was pretty much ripped apart by critics from the get go, so I truly believe this movie didnt get a fair shake at all. Not only that, I also believe that if you werent a wrestling fan, you probably had no idea this movie was even out (which in a recent interview, Vince McMahon himself said he also believes that Lionsgate dropped the ball on promoting it as they only tried to get WWF fans). Oh well, what can you do?

Hopefully this doesnt set them back from doing more movies, as so far the 2 of 3 I've watched have been pretty fun, but obviously nothing thats going to win any awards.

I will give it 4 buttholes, cause I thought it was very entertaining. Cant wait to see Steve Austin in a comedy.