Green Street 3: Never Back Down (2013)

Simply Perfect

A Disappointing Continuation

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Scott Adkins brother gets killed by some tasty football hooligan, so he comes home, says bye to him, gives his mum a hug, has a cup of tea, and then enlists some minor British actors to join his firm, and maybe catch the beggars who killed his brother.These Football hooligan films are now being released every week, and even though you shouldn't watch them, you can't help but carry on turning them on, laughing at the poor dialogue and the silly use of swearing.My favourite part of these types of movie is having the old school bloke from a firm ages ago, wearing the brown coat, having the short grey hair, and saying 'tasty' a lot, very realistic.But to be honest, if Adkins wasn't in this, I wouldn't have bothered. If your not a true action movie fan from the eighties and nineties, you may have recognised him from The Legend Of Hercules, or the on who gets killed by Statham in Expendables 2.To every one else, he's a phenomenal action star, holding his own against Van Damme, and resurrecting the direct to Blu Ray action movie with Ninja.But sadly, it's just another silly football movie badly hiding the fact that it's copying everything from Rocky IV, bar the 'change' speech at the end.The fight scenes are unrealistic, the score is way too jolly, and even Adkins is tolerable, he cannot save this film.A huge disappointment

The original Green St didn't need a sequel but we got one all the same and to be fair STAND YOUR GROUND was watchable down to the fact it was unintentionally funny . After all it's not every day you watch a film entirely filmed in an American prison trying to convince its audience that it's set in Britain . To be fair this follow is probably mindful of this hence we get constant establishing shots showing us we are indeed in a cold and cloudy London . This unfortunately is the only thing the film manages to achieve NEVER BACK DOWN is a cynical exercise in marketing a film as a sequel to another film it has absolutely no connection with . There's no reason what so ever for the words " Green " " Street " or 3 to prefix NEVER BACK DOWN and in reality could easily be a star vehicle for Jean Claude Van Damme since it revolves around martial arts rather than unsophisticated fists and boots The need to showcase martial arts is what the film concentrates on and as other people have pointed out explanation and exposition is sacrificed to show the protagonists fighting skill . From the outset we get a dialogue free sequence that ends with a couple of heavies getting a good slapping . We also get a long sequence of ramping , ie constant fast motion followed by slow motion most famously seen in 300 . In short it's a film of style over substance that won't appeal to anyone who is after a dramatic movie

Was there need for a third film in this dreary franchise? the bigger question is how on earth they got Scott Adkins in it?! I guess if you like violent rumbles between large groups of moronic football 'fans' then you might get a kick outta this. Of course I use the word fans in a very loose sense as we all know its about footie hooligans.The plot is merely a replay of the first two films, more excuses for cockney battles in the street. But wait! no its not! its actually about one young hooligan getting killed and his brother comes back to London to sort it out. When I say sort it out...I mean find the culprits and beat the hell outta them with his hooligan buddies (his firm), so yes actually it is the same.So as Adkins is the main character here you may have already guessed that martial arts will be involved...and you'd be right. Although its not a full on martial arts fest as you'd expect from Adkins, its still mainly a large old school ruck but with the added extra of the odd martial arts moves. Clearly they have tried to incorporate both styles and alter the plot, we find out that the world of hoodlum fighting has become more organised and turned into an underground tournament with no rules. It appears the thugs have upgraded their skills with more precision squabbling, actually turning away from booze and becoming lean fit fighting machines.This is all well and good but it kinda removes the whole gritty footie fan battling aspect that made the very first film reasonably fun to watch (aside from seeing Wood getting his head kicked in). Now you simply have yet another fight tournament flick with semi muscular blokes doing martial arts, the perfect vehicle for Adkins and obviously tailored around him. Its good they have tried to come up with a fresh idea here but firstly...it ruins the premise of the franchise and secondly, why make a third film anyway only to change it completely?I still can't quite fathom out why Adkins agreed to make this when its clear to see its a low budget go nowhere flick. This film doesn't even have a wiki page so far! that's how unknown it is! The main problem with the film aside from poor acting and hokey cockney accents is the fact the fights aren't even that good, too obvious basically, you can see the punches and kicks aren't connecting. Had the fights actually looked good then you could forgive all the rest as fighting is the name of the game bottom line. Unfortunately its all pretty bad truth be told, a football hooligan film without any actual footie hooliganism, not that I'm condoning footie hooliganism of course but that's what you expect here, dagnabbit.3/10

This was even worse than Green Street 2 and that was pretty bad. I did however enjoy Scott Adkins in this movie. The man has some incredible skills. I did prefer him as Yuri Boyka (The most complete fighter in the world) and this was nowhere near that performance however a few nifty moves but him at-least a little watchable in the movie.The football is just a tiny background on this movie which was what Green Street was all about. You don't even see a player kick a ball and there's only one tiny scene with the GSE at a game. They should of left Green Street out of this movie and just made one of those low budget fighting movies we see every year.