Tag: Michael Jai White

I have still never seen the UFC themed movie Never Back Down. I barely even know it exists.

But I did watch the sequel, Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown. When I rented it from Blockbuster (old movie alert), I didn’t see the 2 on the title, just saw that Michael Jai White was involved (and it was his first time directing!) and decided to give it a shot. I don’t think I needed to see the first film to get it, so all was well.

And now, years later, we have Never Back Down: No Surrender, the third awaited Never Back Down film. This one is starring and directed again by Michael Jai White, only his second time at the head of a movie.

And again, that is why I am watching this movie. White makes me excited, what can I say?

Has Michael Jai White ever turned down a role that lets him take his shirt off? I think not.

The third film takes place some amount of time after the last film, and things are different now. I think. Case Walker (Michael Jai White) is thinking about getting back into the ring and slumming it out on his own. But that is ridiculous, he is a great fighter and shouldn’t be worried about minor scuffles.

He runs into an old friend, Brody James (Josh Barnett), who is an elite fighter as well and Brody convinces Case to join with his gym and get back into the big ring. So he does sure, no pressure.

Speaking of pressure, they decide to go to Thailand to train and fight. The PFC is holding their big match there in a month or so, James vs Caesar Braga (Nathan Jones), a scary looking man with anger issues and a criminal record. Of course! The whole thing is being promoted by the legendary Hugo Vega (Esai Morales), who cares only about profits. Hell, they even allow performance enhancing drugs in their league, no judgement.

And of course, Case is just there to help James train. He doesn’t care about getting on the ticket. But when people find out he is there, he gets popular again. They hear about how great of a fighter he still is. He gets a viral video. So things begin to happen to get him on in the ring as well, no matter who gets hurt along the way.

Also featuring Gillian White as our necessary love interest/publicist, Stephen Quadros as a trainer, Amarin Cholvibul, Dan Renalds, and JeeJa Yanin as lesser fighters in the gym, and Sahajak Boonthanakit as the only press person to talk.

That dude is like a head taller than the other dude. That is a head worth of ‘roids.

Never Back Down: No Surrender is not going to win any awards. It won’t be nominated for awards either, unless there are UFC film awards, because I don’t know how many of those come out in a year. This film is not the amazing, wonderful, tear inducing, Warrior. No, this is the third film in a straight to DVD UFC series.

So by its own standards, it is just going for some entertainment, with some decent fights. The fights are decent, and the entertainment is also light. That’s right, just light entertainment.

If the movie was less serious or more comedic, then I probably would have thought it was okay. The way our main character got out of a serious conundrum by the end was pretty smart, but still feels disingenuous at the same time. Our hero was against the fight he was forced to take and didn’t want to do it. But he ends up still doing it, just in a weird way. It gives the film a final fight that they advertise on the cover and poster, but in reality, it shouldn’t have happened at all.

I can honestly say I don’t remember a lot about the last movie. But I remember smiling more and thinking it was at least fun. This one was just mostly awkward, with some bad acting and an occasional decent to watch fight.

The male stripper film sensation has really taken off. Three in just a few years! What an exciting new genre. I can only imagine that soon these will be marketed towards teenagers and driving big summer franchises based on “novels” and produced by Lionsgate!

Why did I want to see Chocolate City? Well first of all, I try to watch all the dance movies. Even after seeing the disgusting Battlefield America.

Second, come on, it is basically being advertised as the Black Magic Mike. Outside of bad Marlon Wayan parodies, if your film can be described as the black version of another film, then generally it could be very entertaining. Because it isn’t just an actor swap, it is a complete genre shift, with different issues and different goals.

They can create something wonderful. Or they could create something forgettable, like Peeples.

Or they could stare deeply into your soul and take it when you are most vulnerable.

Michael (Robert Ri’chard) is in college, on a partial scholarship, and working at a local diner as a chef. He has friends, rides a bike, and does good in school. And he can dance. That is important. But things aren’t looking super good at his house. His mother (Vivica A. Fox) is struggling to pay bills, and his older brother who lives at home (DeRay Davis) doesn’t have a job either. So funds are barely coming in, but he is told not to worry, he needs to work on his school work.

Despite his mom’s wishes, he gets some overtime at work. But in a bathroom, he also meets a man named Princeton (Michael Jai White), who offers him some working gig. So Michael grabs his brother and they meet up with Princeton at his club. They expect to be in line for bouncer or server or something, but sure enough, he runs a male stripper club, and it is amateur night. Since they already came all this way and Michael has muscles, he hits the stage, and makes a ton of dollar bills.

This is something he can really start to enjoy. All the attention, even if he has a girlfriend (Eurika Pratts), the money to help his family, and the money to help himself. He can be Sexy Chocolate, a terrible dancing name, but it is what it is. He just has to lie to everyone about where it is coming from and make sure people know it isn’t drugs. Hooray!

Also starring Tyson Beckford, Darrin Dewitt Hensen, Ginuwine, Ernest Thomas, Carmen Electra, and of course, Jean-Claude La Marre.

They had to train for a big group dance. Because Magic Mike.

Chocolate City knows it is the “black Magic Mike” and they run with it. Hell, they make two references to the film, one almost instantly. Which again, is not an issue as long as they tell their own story and make it believable or entertaining or decent.

But they didn’t. They went one of the cheap routes, and gave us a lazy movie hoping to monetize off the success of another film. Damn.

First of all, the dancing in this film was lackluster and mostly missing. A lot of shots show their dancers only from the waste up, especially our main character early on. I can’t imagine him becoming a big success, when we never really get to see him show off his moves. They have him and the other dancers starring straight at the camera, in order to make you few like a patron I guess, which is more awkward than interesting.

Some of the non-star dancers we can see dancing, but even then, the choreography is lame or very simple. The ladies in these clubs apparently just rain down the dollar bills for barely anything as if they have endless purses.

Say what you will about Magic Mike, but the excellent dancing was half the point.

I have no idea what is up with this director, Jean-Clause La Marre. He has directed and produced a lot of films, all low budget, and a lot of them where he stars in them as a Pastor Jones character. He really likes to play a preacher I guess. It is comical looking at his IMDB page and quite clear he might not be the most qualified person to direct an entertaining male stripper film.

Our characters aren’t really relatable. The main star is a dumb ass who lies to everyone. And eventually, of course, he sees the light and realizes he should stop. Of course. Except the very last scene ruins any amount of character development he might have gained by the end, turning the whole film into a quick “just kidding!” joke.

I am disappointed with Michael Jai White too. I enjoy him for the most part, and he is playing the Matthew McConaughey role, but it never really pays out or has that level of professionalism.

I guess I will just see where it goes, because coming this year, Chocolate City: Vegas!

Ah yeah, a completely random movie I have never heard about it. Sexy.

Racism aside, the cover of Somebody’s Child had two black men and one woman on the cover. I will say I figured it would be some sort of baby daddy drama. Nope. Wrong again. I also got it because I knew the star was great at kicking ass and taking names, so there could be a fight scene or two!

Needless to say, this movie offered none of this, and I was just as confused as these two men.

No baby drama. No fight scenes. So much sadness.

Douglas (Michael Jai White) is a simple man. He is a single dad, who also lives with his mom, Constance (Lynn Whitfield). Well, she lives with him. He owns a restaurant and believes in giving people second chances. No time for love, not yet. Especially with his mom needing a Kidney, and waiting for a match.

Alright, so that isn’t any good. But they know they will get through it. They just have to believe and trust God.

Well, at the hospital they see another man, Benjamin (Byron Minns), and she convinces him to offer him a job at the restaurant instead, knowing for sure he must be a felon working on getting his life back on track. They were right! He is on a path of redemption too.

And uhh. Then some redemption happens. Secrets. Everything kind of works out for the best and the movie ends.

Douglas also starts dating Hope (Nadine Ellis), their travel agent, but that plot isn’t important to the story.

What the fuck is this? Why in the hell is there a painting of a scene from this movie? Or super weird lighting?

I think I accidentally watched a lifetime movie. That would explain it. IMDB tells me it was made for TV. It must have been lifetime. Or Hallmark. Because not a lot happened in this film.

There was one twist roughly near the end, but something pretty easy to figure out way before hand. The bigger part of the twist was more confusing. But I don’t want to spoil it.

Fuck it, spoilers, here we go. Benjamin and Douglas are brothers, the mom had to give Benjamin up for adoption and his life was rough. So karma eventually brought them together because they all did good stuff for strangers. Yay. Benjamin also donated the kidney to the mom, out of the goodness of his heart, before he knew they were related. Yay being friendly to strangers! Yay Jesus!

So yeah, very basic inspirational made for TV movie, that teaches us everything works out kind of. Even if your life is shitty and in foster care for many years, causing you to circumstances that might end up with someone dying. Even then.

Damn it Michael Jai White, no more movies where you don’t fight anyone.

So, Generation Iron came to town, so I had to watch it in theaters. My first question was, what in the fuck is Generation Iron? Basically, it is a sequel to Pumping Iron, a documentary that came out in the late 70s to introduce the world more to the idea of bodybuilding and Mr. Olympia.

The purpose of this one? I guess to remind us that Mr. Olympia and bodybuilding are still a thing, and they want attention, damn it.

Unless they are dressing up like ninjas, then they do not want to be seen.

The year, 2011, and Phil Heath has just won the Mr. Olympia contest, his first ever. In fact, he won with a perfect score. Could he be the next big deal?

Well, he thinks so, he is a cocky son of a bitch, who talks about perfection, and just trying to beat himself at this point.

This film details the lives of several current big name body builders who hope to take the title, and who are going through many different paths to achieve that goal. A lot of names, could list them all, but I just want to note Kai Greene, who looks way too friendly to be a body builder, and Dennis Wolf, who is the real life incarnation of Rainier Wolfcastle.

The film talks about it all. Science, training regiments, heart, why they get so bronzed up before a competition, and steroids. Yes, even steroids. They don’t avoid the subject, they talk about it straight on…just…uneasily.

Also a lot of guest stars. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, Busta Rhymes, Michael Jai White, and awkwardly narrated by Mickey Rourke. Why awkward? Well, because he didn’t really add much to to it. Just said some stuff, usually poetic, every once in awhile. Kind of creeped me out.

Then it of course goes into the 2012 Mr. Olympia contest, showing us how its all done, and yeah. Movie! Woo weights!

If they knew how to fight, they could kick all of our asses.

Again, documentaries are kind of strange to review, but here is my attempt. This movie gave a really good view of bodybuilding from what felt a neutral stand point. Despite Phil being the winner, they didn’t attempt to show him in a positive light, they let him be himself (and he is apparently an egotistical asshole. Alright, maybe they hate him and it was cut that way?). We got to see the good and bad of lots of contenders, who come from many different backgrounds and abilities. I loved its neutrality on all the issues, and the fact that they even brought up steroids. Made me happy.

I am not a fan of these competitions, because they are just so damn biased, they don’t make much sense to me. Why do all the champions win so many times in a row? Probably because the judges are just making shit up and basing it off of who has won before and who should win now. That is my guess. Kind of hard to ignore. No real way to do a blind taste test.

In general, the Mr. Olympia show looks like shit. Especially in 2012, when there is no suspense as to who will win. Why? Because they will call certain competitors back out to get second look, but only if they are the top overall people. If they suck, they don’t want to see you again. They just give extra time to the people who they like, so again, no real suspense, seems pointless to me. They should give everyone equal time, more fair.

But eh. It is an okay movie. I think it was too long, had some boring stretches, and I forgot the difference between a few people. Phil wins 2012, which is not a spoiler, because the 2013 competition has already happened when this came out in theaters. That is three in a row for Phil. They should really get this out quicker, its already old and awkward. Can’t be too hard to polish up a documentary.

Dy-na-mite! Dy-na-mite!

Theme music, everyone wants some, but no one has any. Unless that someone is Black Dynamite. Originally recommended from my brother, I think I was given an illegal copy of this movie to watch. Shocking I know. But I never watched it. But when I was at a store later and saw it for only $7.50, I figured I’d just grab it and watch that version, easing my conscious. Hopefully yours are now eased as well.

If anything this film taught me the term “blaxploitation”.

Black Dy-na-mite! (Michael Jai White) is a bad ass motherfucker, who kicks ass, takes name, and takes the women as well. He is a former Vietnam veteran, and CIA agent, but left because e was too amazing. But when his brother Jimmy gets killed through mysterious means, e gets back into the game to find out the culprit. He is re-recruited into the CIA by O’Leary (Kevin Chapman) so he doesn’t go on an unsupervised rampage.

Eventually Black Dynamite is able to team up with some local gang leaders to “take back the streets”. Once they realize local orphans are hooked on heroin, he vows to clean up the drugs and anyone who pushes them. Part of his posse includes Cream Corn (Tommy Davidson) and Bull Horn (Byron Minns). Not to mention other characters who help briefly, such as Osiris (Obba Babatunde) and Tasty Freeze (Arsenio Hall).

During his mission and investigation, he also runs into Gloria (Salli Richardson-Whitfield), a political activist who wants to make the city better, get good politicians, and get the kids off of drugs. The classiest woman he has ever met, basically.

But who is supplying the heroin to the kids on the streets? Why is The Man being so secretive about Jimmy’s death? Just where is Kung Fu Island? How does Anaconda Malt Liquor make you “Ooooh!”?

These guys are “Meaner than two fat motherfuckers wrestling over pork chops and greens, can you dig it?”

So what makes this movie good? The answer is pretty much everything. Spoofs are a hard genre to pull off, because preferably behind it all is a level of intelligence or wit, and not just the characters being spoofed doing fart jokes or just slapstick. This movie parodies a lot of quick movies from the 70s and 80s, with a powerful black character, bad acting, bad editing, over styled color schemes, and super hip lingo. A Shaft-like movie, if you care.

The filmmakers pay incredible amounts of attention to detail, at the elements that make it seem like they weren’t paying attention. Everything is intentional in the movie, and its awesome. From badly edited scenes (a fight scene that is redone but shows both takes, obvious differences in a characters face during a dialogue from cutting back and forth), to the cheesy dialogue, to the fight scenes and ridiculous plot, to the most ridiculous Jeff Goldbloom-esque word association game to find out the clue.

Michael Jai White obviously kicks a lot of ass, which is a general theme of movies he helps direct/write. The movie was successful enough to spawn a cartoon of the same name, which I haven’t seen yet, but can’t wait to watch. You don’t have to be a fan of the genre of films to enjoy this movie, I can’t say I’ve seen any of them myself. But still, this is a great film to watch with others and enjoy the finer things of life in the 70s.

I can’t say I ever saw the first Never Back Down movie, but I bet it sucked. I am not even sure if there is any related characters in this movie to the first. The sequel is actually directed by Michael Jai White, who is badass, and plays a great MMA fighter who has had cop trouble so instead sticks to training individuals in a secret dojo. Through different means, we have four main fighters who end up coming to train under White in order to compete in a large underground tournament, The Beatdown.

I bet Black Dynamite could win that tournament without even touching the ground.

Winner gets 10k, just needs 16 different fighters doing MMA. Some of these people in this movie are actual MMA fighters, I just couldn’t tell you who. Probably that big ass dude. Spoiler? The four people who train under MJW get to be the final four. One of the four ended up being a crazy asshat though, who also tries to get the cops to “break down” Michael Jai White. So the other 3 have to make sure he doesn’t win, but without being all, Karate Kid low kicking cheap. That is about it. Everyone has different reasons for fighting, but you can kinda guess who will win and what will happen. Acting isn’t the best, but I can at least say the film entertained me.

The ending is of course the tournament, which has the largest concentration of fights in it, but don’t worry, there are earlier fights as well. This movie also features a montage. This is supposed to be MJW’s first attempt at direction, which would would explain why everything his character does is just the most badass thing a person can do. Similarly, he may have just based it off of his own life.

I think this movie didn’t know what it wanted to be. First part was amusing in a violent sort of way, and then it almost tried to be some sort of a cheesy 80’s cop show (based off the soundtrack). But then when it tried to get serious, it never really got there.

This movie is about a Tactical Force unit that just doesn’t do things by the book! Effective? Sure. But no one seemed to pay attention in SWAT class.
Including a hilarious lesson on how to properly stop someone with hostages. That is internet sarcasm.

Shut your dirty mouth, ORLY Owl

While going to a warehouse to run test missions with fake bullets and what not, they accidentally encounter a real gorup of bad guys. Oh no! With no bullets, versus a ton of people with bullets? However will they stop them? Oh yeah. TACTICAL FORCE!

So more things happen. More kinda violence. Steve Austin, the leader, ends up wrestling with someone else. Weird for a SWAT guy, but I guess they were going for that. I thought Michael Jai White (Black Dynomiteeee) was pretty good at his role. There was a “Twist” ending as well, that really didn’t mean anything or need to exist. I understand it. But it didn’t add anything to the movie or trick you in any way. Just kinda blah.