The Condemned

Why couldn’t The Condemned have happened right after Nash Bridges? Stone Cold was on the verge, man. He would ride that motorcycle with his funny helmet and beat people up side by side with the great Don Johnson. Sadly it looks like only the 15 people who watched Nash Bridges turned up for the movie. And I don’t think that’s fair, was The Condemned great? Oh hellllll no! But could it at least make more money than goddamned Pathfinder? Austin could kick Eomer's ass.

There was a great movie to be made here. Yeah, yeah, I am as shocked as you are that WWE Films came up with a damn decent idea like this one. It was just the execution that left a hell of a lot to be desired. I had hoped to see something along the lines of Battle Royale but instead of Japanese teenagers gutting each other, it would be Stone Cold Fricking Steve Austin opening cans of whoopass throughout the island. And that is my fault, I broke my own rule of not allowing myself to decide what I want the movie to be before I see the damn thing. The final product actually provided some halfway acceptable violence in pretty scenery. Also Austin was constant giving the bmf poses with the perfect angles to capture him on camera and Vinnie Jones cracked wise like Vinnie Jones is known to do. Not much more to recommend about the film unless you are familiar with wrestling, if that is the case then Vince McMahon has been recreated for you in the form of a morally bankrupt television producer. What? He is a man who is described as someone who could sell dirt to a ditch digger. What? That is right a character who takes no responsibility for the product he is pushing and blames the audience for watching. What? And he is the evil character who in the end puts over Stone Cold. What? Yeah that’s what I thought too.

I have grown to begrudging accept that there are just crops and crops of directors who believe fight scenes should be shot in the schizophrenic camera style with constant quick cuts and just a complete inability to follow what the hell is going on. Cause it is not like Austin spent 15 years in front of live cameras faking fights. As for Stone Cold, I love the man, but he just moves like a wrestler with some serious mileage. He is just hunched over and lumbering through the jungle. He needs to drop weight like The Rock if he is going to continue down this path. Those are just nitpicks; now for the two main faults of The Condemned. First a majority of characters exist just to die. There is no more than a cursory attempt to make us care for these people before they are slaughtered. If it is not Austin or Vinnie who cares they are just going to die anyways. And finally the movie has no right to soapbox us at the end. A movie can’t blow people up, light them on fire, impale them on pipes, rape the females, and your basic shoot holes through each other then take time to say that all this is on your head John Q Public. See what we have been reduced to? Oh will somebody please think of the children! There is some point to be made about the credibility of the messenger but damned if I can’t figure out what it is.

If The Condemned is the end of WWE Films, I guess that is as it should be. Still, it was not as horrible as the box office has made it out to be. I have seen so much worse in my life that this doesn’t even rate an honorable mention on that list. Plus Austin should make a play at a career without attachments to WWE. He can work as a action star if he gets the right work. The Condemned was not the right work.

5 out of 10