646f9e108c Sequel to the 2002 film. This time, Heavyweight Champ George "Iceman" Chambers is sent to a Russian Jail on trumped-up drug charges. I thought this movie was pretty fun. It was certainly by the numbers, but it didn't really disappoint. The characters were all pretty good, some over the top, but still engaging. Michael Jai White was pretty good as the protagonist (certainly uses the expression "F you" a lot), the bad guy was pretty standard but fun, and the Russian inmates were more than just cardboard cutouts. I thought the fight scenes were great, nicely choreographed, exciting and inventive. As a sequel, well, it's kind of interesting the bad guy from the first movie is the hero in this one, but you don't really need to see the first one to enjoy this movie. One needs to certainly turn their brain off a bit, but as an action movie, I would definitely recommend it for fans of the genre. The second of the UNDISPUTED franchise, LAST MAN STANDING sees B-movie action specialist Isaac Florentine taking over from Walter Hill for what is a very different beast to the first. Gone are that film's cast, with Michael Jai White playing the hulking hero and taking over from Ving Rhames who played the same character in the first. It's still about martial arts tournaments in a Russian prison, but otherwise it's all change. The emphasis is on staging a series of brutal fight scenes both inside and outside of the ring, and they feature violent hits and extreme choreography. They're fantastic, to put it simply, and they help to lift what is otherwise an average plot and storyline into something special. Jai White is okay as the hero, although his character is perhaps a bit too hard to be very sympathetic, but then-newcomer Scott Adkins is the stand-out as his opponent, the Russian beast Boyka. It's amazing what Adkins does with his role here - his introduction in the ring alone had my eyes popping out of my head - and he would carry on the story with a further two sequels in which he would become the redemptive protagonist.
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