Rating: C+
Dir: Isaac Florentine
Star: Michael Jai White, Scott Adkins, Ben Cross, Eli Danker
I had apparently seen this already. My review for Undisputed III: Redemption described the second part as “not very interesting.” But that hardly is sufficient to explain why I didn’t review it, especially given my commitment to cover Adkins’s entire career. Well, almost entire: I still have not been drunk enough to watch The Intergalactic Adventures of Max Cloud. On re-view for this review, I feel my previous dismissal was somewhat harsh. True, there’s nothing special or especially innovative here. Yet, for what it is, this is competent enough. And what it is, is a delivery mechanism for the viewer to watch White and Adkins beat people up, in a variety of styles.
White plays former Heavyweight champion George “Iceman” Chambers, who has fallen on hard times, and jumps at the chance of making a vodka advert in Russia. Except it’s just a scheme, to get Chambers framed on drug charges. He is then sent to the hell of a bottom tier Russian prison. It’s run by the mob for some obscure reasons, likely connected to the underground fight circuit going on there, which is streamed and bet on worldwide. But the current champion, Yuri Boyka (Adkins) is too dominant. To restore interest, they need a new challenger, and that’s where Chambers comes in, regardless of whether he wants to or not. A lot of people are keen to ensure that match-up happens – more than once to boot – including some who claim to be a friend of Chambers.
As mentioned, the plotting is by the numbers, with evil Russian gangsters, a slimy manager and, as feels almost contractually required in every prison movie, a wheelchair-bound guy who plays the mouth-organ, and used to be a wiz at martial arts. Here, he is called Crot (Danker), which sounds more like the name of a state-run store in the Communist era. He teaches Chambers the secret move of leg-snapping he’ll need to use to defeat Boyka in their rematch. This takes place because Chambers only lost the first bout after being slipped a mickey in his water by heroin addict, and not very good friend, Steven Parker (Cross). Interestingly, this annoys Boyka, who wasn’t involved, as much as Chambers, because the champ feels he doesn’t need help to win.
If the story, characters and performances don’t do much to provoke reaction, the fight sequences are solid. This dates back to a point when Adkins was spectacularly gymnastic in style, bouncing around the ring like an aggressive and highly pissed-off rubber ball. Florentine is content to keep the camera relatively static, and the results are the better for it. There just is not much sense of progression from one fight to the next. It’s closer to “more of the same,” not that there’s anything particularly wrong with that. I was adequately entertained, though realized I’ve not watched the original Undisputed, starring Wesley Snipes, in which Ving Rhames played Chambers. Maybe I should rectify that, to finish off this largely reverse-order viewing of the franchise.
This review is part of Project Adkins, covering the movies of Scott Adkins.