The Condemned at Criticker.com (2025)

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It's sad, but i actually had too high expectations for this. The Running Man meets Jurassic Park should be good old stupid fun, but gets way to caught up in the morality of violence in the media.

The concept is derivative, but it's still a solid one for a no-brain action film. That's what I wanted, but there are some major flaws. First, the hypocritical moralizing about the consumption of violence becomes tired and irritating. Second, the fight scenes are filmed with lame shaky-cam style that is artificial and prevents the viewer from seeing what is happening. Third, the writing towards the end goes beyond no-brain to absolutely brain-dead. Finally, Austin is wooden wrong for this role.

A sadist's action movie. It wants to be bad guys fighting bad guys to the death gladiator-style, but only a few come off as crazed killers while the others fall victim to nonsensical torture. Steve Austin is our hero, but rooting for him doesn't save the movie. It's all too depressing to care about, and by the end the writers want to send a message about violence in entertainment. It's as if they want to offend their own audience. Even taken as a formulaic action film, it's third-rate.

"THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME” for WWE veterans – has the makings of a fine piece of disposable entertainment, but there’s an odd push-pull between the campiness of the performers and the deadly earnest pontifications the screenplay drags up around the “evils” of screen violence; “if-it-bleeds-it-leads” has been so played out at this point that there really needed to be a new angle to make this satisfying. Austin is a satisfactory hero, and Jones gleefully tears up the screen as a loony antagonist.

31.12.2022 Kartal, İstanbul.

Deathrow-winnerlives+husbandandwife+hesactuallyagoodguy-gfwatching+killwife+gfhelpsbombhim

Not even the gloriously hammy performance by Vinnie Jones can save this Battle Royale'esque turd from being incredibly boring.

2016-03-20plot is good, scenes are nice (good cinematographics), but too much violence and ugly faces for my taste

Jack Conrad (Steve Austin) is a death-row inmate awaiting execution in a Central American jail when a TV producer buys him and takes him to a remote island. There, Jack and nine other prisoners learn they are to fight each other to the death, with freedom as the prize for the sole survivor. The producer plans to broadcast the event live and uncensored over the Internet.

Another inferior Battle Royale clone - takes the opposing parts to Hunger Games but both are less than the original whole.

Entertaining. And that's about it, I guess.

The idea has been there before, but they make sure they try very little original.

Oh you think I'm a bad person for enjoying your movie? Well guess what, I didn't enjoy your stupid shitty movie. What now?

For an ultra-violent movie--which I normally cannot take seriously for even a moment--not bad.

Worth watching just for Vinnie Jones. Manu Bennett is also pretty good in this. Too bad Steve Austin had the lead role. Watching him lumber around the screen was kind of painful; the guy's body is so messed up from injuries, protein powder, steroids, drugs and age that he appears barely able to run (or do anything requiring agility). He is pretty good at falling though. Not very believable that he demolishes guys half his age in hand-to-hand combat who are in far better physical condition.

Honestly, this film was not trying to be the next great action film entering into the annals of movie history. It was just trying to be Steve Austin and a bunch of other action actors maiming and killing each other in the jungle, and, in that, it succeeds wonderfully. Now, one has to judge just what type of score that type of project at best would deserve...

Good action slow plot.

"A shameless rip on Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale, The Condemned unseats Slow Burn as the most hilariously inane film of 2007." - Ed Gonzalez

but sometimes,feels good to have a bit of excitement!

The Condemned is a really odd film. It's a graphic action film about a bunch of people set loose on an island who each have a goal set for them. They must kill everyone else on the island before 30 hours, or they will all be blown up. It's a film that tries to send a message to its viewers about how the portrayal of violence in the media has gotten out of hand. Not even the action scenes can save the film, as most of them end up being hard to follow with the constant use of shaky cams.

why the fuck does the italian guy always have to be the goofiest/dumbest? such a great movie tho. also, lots of titty

this is battle royale with Stone Cold..it could have been a lot worst some of the kills were fun...

Pointless movie, that even tries to deliver some sort of ethic message between hardcore fights to the death. A weird movie. Maybe it would work better if the script wouldn't be so pretentious. Still a decent c-grade actioner.

Poor.

Meh, fuck it. Watch it, have a good time.

Battle Royale wanna be...

Was going alright until the last five minutes, i.e. the helicopter scene and the closing music

The condemned battle royale?

Amusing

Better than I thought it would be but not that great either.

OK do it's a no-brainer action movie but it's well done for one of those, has a plot that makes sort of sense to hang it on and even a couple of sub-plots and some acceptable acting from a few of the cast. 'Stone Cold' worked out surprisingly well (well I was surprised; I was expecting much worse!) and for a Saturday night action movie you could do far worse than this... though if you watch in the cold light of day it makes fair (though unsubtle) points on reality TV and violence too.

Yes, it's a guilty pleasure. But BOY do I love the 10 men enter, one man leaves kind of movies. What bothered me was the gratuitous rape scene. While it showed about 1/10 of what appeared in Jodi Foster's pinball table scene in "The Accused", it was still pretty raw and kind of unnecessary. It turned an otherwise fun movie into something a little too real. Come on WWE, where's the fun?

Decent. Vinnie Jones is good!

To the filmmaker's credit, this film does show a little bit of restraint. Considering the basic plot, the film is not as violent or gory or campy as it could have been. In the end, I went into this movie looking for a film to hate. Instead, I give The Condemned a half-hearted "Meh."

I found the level of violence here frankly disturbing...no real gripes about it otherwise.

Could have been so much better had Stone Cold actually been stone cold. Instead he was a poon cake. In addition 90 percent of the kills were cop outs that just ended up with an explosion

Far exceeded my expectations (which were terrible lol) ~ Great concept. The acting wasn't exactly great, some of the music was terribly placed, & the cinematography during certain action shots were nauseating, but it was overall a worthwhile movie.

The movie is definitely better than your average beat-em-and-blow-em-up flick, despite being...well, one of them. It has it's fair share of bad movie moments, but at the same time somehow avoids becoming an actual BAD MOVIE. Don't ask me how. If you're a wrestling fan, check it out. You'll be impressed with Stone Cold in his first starring role, and Vinnie Jones delivers. It even seems he gets a bit more screen time than Austin himself. You won't mind.

This is so awful that it's actually good.

Directed by:

Scott Wiper

Screenwriter:

Rob Hedden, Scott Wiper, Andy Hedden

Starring:

Vinnie Jones, Tory Mussett, Robert Mammone, Nathan Jones, Rick Hoffman, Steve Austin, Manu Bennett, Sam Healy, Madeleine West, Emilia Burns, Masa Yamaguchi, Dasi Ruz

Genres:

Suspense/Thriller, Action

Country:

USA

Languages:

English, Spanish, German, Portuguese