Never Back Down: No Surrender (DVD) : Review

Film

We meet former MMA champion Case Walker (Michael Jai White) in a story seeing him on the path to a comeback. Picking up after the events of Never Back Down 2, the story leaves little time for introduction, setting the scene and pace as a film about fighting, and getting right to the point.

Never Back Down: No Surrender is a film about fighting, and that’s what it does. There are street brawls, and fights in the ring. There’s a bad, rich businessman controlling things, and a few other fighters on the side of good and bad. If you watch the film to see fights, and you don’t look for anything else, you might not be disappointed. For everyone else, seek your entertainment elsewhere.

Starting with the dialogue, which seems to be a string of hurried utterances, and cliched one-liners, to the incredibly week climax in the third at, not forgetting a rather week attempt to establish some sort of lesson in honour conveyed by some of the supporting characters. There really is not much positive this at all. There are those on the cast who can obviously fight, or have had some great choreography. But that is about all there is to look forward to.

Never Back Down: No Surrender has its dedicated audience, and they’ll love the fights. For anyone else, seek your action thrills elsewhere.

Disc

Technically, the disc is sound, however it is lacking in any sort of additional material, and the main feature is really not worth much effort unless you’re a fan of those doing the actual fighting.

Never Back Down: No Surrender is available now, to purchase on disc, in South Africa.

Video

Video is encoded at a high average bitrate. There are no visible artefacts, nor any colour bleed.

Viewers with the necessary hardware or software, and who wish, can scale up to a larger or higher resolution screen.

Audio

Audio is encoded at a high average bitrate, and presented in 5.1. Dialogue is clear via the centre channel, with ample use of the surrounds to further expand the on-screen action and draw the viewer into the story.

Navigation

Navigation is simple, and easy to use. There is a static main menu, with text links for language, scene selection and to play the previews again.

The scene selection sub-menus consist of a few colour static thumbnails, leaving some guesswork as to where in the main feature you are navigating.

Bonus Features

There are no bonus features on the disc, other than trailers for Woodlawn and Where Hope Grows which auto-play at the beginning of the disc. These can be fast-forwarded, but not individually skipped. There is a menu option to play these again, should you so wish.

 

By Andrew Germishuys

Founder of SAMDB | Actor | Armourer | Tech Enthusiast With over two decades in the film industry, I'm a seasoned actor and skilled armourer. I hold numerous certifications in acting and filmmaking, complemented by degrees and diplomas in IT and technology, giving me a unique blend of creative and technical expertise. When I'm not on set or in the workshop, you'll find me immersed in the world of gaming and VR, fuelling my passion for cutting-edge technology. Connect with me: X / Twitter Facebook Instagram Mastodon Threads Explore my work on SAMDB IMDb