January 25, 200817 yr Im looking forward to it but isnt there a live album ben released first Now it's probably about reversing that and making a record that's, maybe, tracked live. That's what it's saying in the article. I think they are referring to new songs that are recordered live ? Don't think there will be a live CD with songs from one of the albums. There is ofcourse the realease of the DVD , which will contain performances of tracks from The Black Parade album performed on their latest tour.
January 30, 200817 yr MCR's 'Parade' of Great Songs A few friends of mine and I were having a conversation the other day about this and that and the usual college dorm room nothing when our discussion came to music and what our favorite albums were. It was then that one of my friends asked me what my favorite album of all time was. I had to think hard. Aside from video games, music has always been my favorite escape from reality and my library consists of hundreds and hundreds of albums. How could I choose just one? But then I got it. It wasn't The Beatles or the Stones, Zeppelin or The Who. It wasn't Dylan or the Boss, or any other usual "best album ever" list topper. It was My Chemical Romance and their 2006 album, "The Black Parade," and it was by complete accident. I remember seeing a headline on a cover of Blender magazine before the album's release. It read "My Chemical Romance's Masterpiece." I was in disbelief. Before that album's release My Chemical Romance had been squarely placed under the emo label, and I never thought they could deliver something that would be considered real rock. When the album came out, a friend of mine purchased it and made me a copy. Eventually, it made it to my iPod, but I never really listened to it. One day, while on shuffle mode, "The Sharpest Lives" began playing. It was fantastic, unlike anything I'd heard before, and I couldn't believe it when I saw it was MCR. The simple repetitive chord was accompanied only by lead singer Gerard Way's vocals. "Well it rains and it pours when you're out on your own / If I crash on the couch, can I sleep in my clothes? / 'Cause I've spent the night dancing, I'm drunk, I suppose / If it looks like I'm laughing, I'm really just asking to leave." Then it just took off and I was taken aback. I listened to the album in its entirety that day, then again and again. "Parade" is a mix of rock opera and a musical storytelling that taps Queen, Bowie and even the conceptual influence of The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and blends it into one 57-minute epic. The album centers on a cancer-ridden character only known as "The Patient," who dies over the course of the album, and his inevitable departure and reflection on life. The album begins with a track titled "The End," which is basically the patient's final moments in this twisted story, and then flows right into a track fans of "Guitar Hero II" are familiar with, "Dead!" "Dead!" - which, though not the best song on the album, is probably my favorite - is easily one of the most explosive, catchy and upbeat songs about death I've ever heard. "Parade" progresses through two equally awesome tracks, "This Is How I Disappear" and "The Sharpest Lives," and then takes an abrupt halt into what has to be the best song on the CD and the best song I would have to say of the past five years: "Welcome to the Black Parade." Never before have I heard a song as triumphant, as powerful or as energetic as this anthem of anthems. From its epic marching band drum line build-up to its fast-paced body, Way and the rest of band seem to be calling to the youth of the nation to stand up and enlist in the angst-filled army they have created. What really puts the song over the top for me though, is the ending that calls back to the same victorious feel I get from Queen's "We Are The Champions." Way wails over brass and drums with unmatched tenacity, "I'm just a man / I'm not a hero / Just a boy, who's meant to sing this song / Just a man / I'm not a hero / I don't care." It's awe-inspiring, I'll say that much. The rest of the album, from "House of Wolves" to awesome sing-a-long, "Teenagers" to "Famous Last Words," ties together to deliver the most well-rounded album I've ever listened to - every song is important and not one is out of place. Needless to say, my friends berated me for my choice, but it is one I stand by. Sure, I could have gone with an obvious choice like "Born to Run" or "Sgt. Pepper's," but where's the fun in that? If you've never listened to it, I urge you to join the "Black Parade;" you won't regret it. Stephen Ortiz http://media.www.dailycampus.com/media/sto...011-page2.shtml
January 30, 200817 yr How amazing to read this Stephen is such a great fan of The Chemmies :cheer: If you ever read this Stephen feel free to post btw. :lol:
January 31, 200817 yr Gerard Way's road to success My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way talks about his band's success, being bottled, and why he doesn't like the word 'emo' Neither critical success nor the adoration of thousands of teenage girls has gone to the head of My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way, or so it seemed when he entered the Far Eastern Hotel's Platinum Suite without personal assistants on Saturday evening, preceded by only his younger brother and the band's bass player, Mikey. My Chemical Romance - which played in front of 3,500 mostly college-age fans at National Taiwan University Athletic Stadium on Sunday - is nearing the end of a year-long tour to support The Black Parade, the platinum-selling, unabashedly over-the-top concept album about a dying cancer patient obsessed with redemption and revenge. Sitting with his legs crossed, wearing dark Ray Bans that obscure his eyes, Way starts the interview by measuring the success of that album, which has been compared with Pink Floyd's epic The Wall. "To us Black Parade was the best record of that year," 2006. "That's how we felt about it when we were making it; we still feel that way about it. But something like The Wall is hugely ambitious. I don't know what it takes to make a record like that. I think you gotta take a sledgehammer to your life in a lot of ways and I don't think anyone in this band is prepared to do that." Ron Brownlow: On this tour until really recently you would come out and say you were the Black Parade, at least for the first hour. And then you stopped last month. Gerard Way: We were filming a show in Mexico, and maybe 10 minutes before we went on we just decided that it was going to be the last one. We felt like we'd done all we could as the Black Parade and we really wanted to go back to simply being My Chemical Romance. And that's just really being a great rock band. RB: So part of it was you were on the road for so long you were just sick of doing it? GW: Actually a small part of it was that. It caged us. But a bigger part was, I think, everything attached with being the Black Parade was something we wanted to kind of move on from. (Way identified so much with the character in the album, known only as the Patient, that until recently he assumed the persona on stage. He cropped his black hair short and dyed it silvery blond to, he says, "appear white and deathlike." Members of My Chemical Romance wore matching black uniforms, and the band played part of each concert under the pseudonym The Black Parade.) RB: So can we still talk about the Patient? GW: Yeah! Of course. RB: How is the Patient right now? GW: (Laughing.) I always like to feel that that particular character was created so everyone could identify with the character. Most likely everyone is eventually going to become a patient, and that's going to be the last time you are a patient. You kind of lose your sense of identity; and if you don't have any family around you, you even have less of an identity. But I like to think that, at the end of that record, the character gets a second chance, which you rarely get, you know? I'd like to think whether or not the character dies, he does in fact choose to live. RB: I was reading a New York Times story that said the Patient is the American Everyman recast as a sick, violence-scarred wreck. GW: I'd say that's pretty close. It's definitely an Everyman. I don't think largely American, though. We had sought out to make a universal record, and just the fact that we're here today proves that we did. It's interesting. We don't really think of ourselves as a New Jersey band. And we also don't think of ourselves as an American band in a lot of ways. We felt more a band of the world or somewhere like the UK. We felt more like a British rock band than anything. (Born on April 9, 1977, Gerard Way grew up in blue-collar Belleville, New Jersey, roughly 15km from Manhattan. When he was a teenager, he was held up at gunpoint. According to an article in Rolling Stone magazine, Way said a .357 Magnum was pointed to his head, and he was "put on the floor, execution-style." He graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York City and was working in the comic book industry there when, on Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center. Twice when we're talking about Sept. 11, his voice tails off.) RB: Did you see the planes crash into the World Trade Center? GW: I was taking the commuter train in. I didn't see any of the planes hit. I did see the buildings go down, from I'd say fairly close. It was like being in a science fiction film or some kind of disaster film - it was exactly that kind of feeling. You didn't believe it. You felt like you were in Independence Day. It made no sense. Your brain couldn't process it. And for me it was a little different. I'm very empathetic and I'm kind of a conduit emotionally, so I pick up a lot of stuff in that way. There was about three- or four-hundred people around me - and I was right at the edge. All these people behind me, they all had friends and family in those buildings. I didn't. So when that first building went, it was like an A-bomb went off. It was like just this emotion and it made you nauseous. One of the first thoughts that went through my head when they went down was, "What does this mean?" RB: How did that lead to the creation of the band? GW: One of the other things I thought about when the first building went down was, "Everything's kind of pointless that you're doing right now." I was involved in commercial art in New York, trying to pitch a show to the Cartoon Network that was extremely frustrating because I was dealing with a company that had optioned the cartoon show that didn't quite get it. I think they were more interested in turning it into toys and pillowcases and $h!t like that, and it was really disheartening. That was my first ever taste of creating something and seeing it take off a little bit - and it didn't feel good. At that moment I was like, "This doesn't mean anything. This is all garbage. This is all bull$h!t. I need to do something that actually means something, or my life's gonna mean nothing. Just like this cartoon means nothing." RB: Do you think you've found meaning through this? GW: I think we created something special together. I think it means something. It meant something when it started, it said what it kind of had to say, and so that's an interesting position to be in because I don't necessarily think that the next album we make, I don't necessarily think that it needs to mean something. I think we're kind of finished in that regard. So it's gonna be interesting to see what we do next because, quote unquote "the mission" or "the goal," I feel very complete about that. (Way and My Chemical Romance are polarizing figures. In a Kerrang! magazine poll, the band was voted both best and worst band of 2006. Appearing with the band at that year's Reading Festival in England, Way, known for his onstage histrionics, was pelted with a bottle of urine and other objects thrown from the audience. That same year, Welcome to the Black Parade reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, as it did in the US. The album has gone platinum in both countries.) RB: Getting bottled. What did that feel like? GW: It was exhilarating and extremely challenging. There's nothing like that to humble you more and let you know that there's still something to fight for. RB: You felt exhilarated? GW: Yeah! I think when all is said and done people will look at that very specific show and say that was the most important show of this band's career, because they got up there facing a tremendous amount of opposition and won an entire crowd over and did it with the camera on them and everybody facing them. I think that's why it's important because it really sums up the band in one 40-minute set. It was not easy. It was a volley at first and then just it stopped and there was cheering and there was excitement and there was positivity. A current through the audience. It's amazing to watch footage BBC captured. RB: You've said the band started as your therapy, and then it became the band's therapy, and then we became other people's therapy. GW: It was kind of a therapy for me at first because of 9/11, and then the band because, in some way, we, in our own lives, had been the people that did not fit in or weren't built like other people - just not prone to violence. Not survivors in that regard. Survivors in a different way. And so then when we'd go to these shows we started meeting these kids just like us. And so that was almost like a group therapy session. That was really exciting. We're just all working it out. Since we're very non-violent people in our everyday lives and our fans are very much the same. They're very much like shy, quiet loners. You have to have some place you need to kind of get that out. Our shows were the place to do it. One of the things that's a common misconception about the punk rock scene is that what's cool about it is you could go and fit in because it's punk rock. But in actuality you can't. I don't think enough people say this about it. It was the same as being in high school with jocks. I would go to punk clubs and get shoved by skinheads because I wasn't like them, which was just like getting shoved by jocks wearing a Ramones shirt. RB: You've talked about failure. You said, "I have failed a great deal in my life with everything I've tried to do. I was a failed artist. I was a failed animator-this-that-and they other thing … I was always very close but I was always not quite there." GW: Maybe it's not so much failure so much as it is not following through and giving up. I think I was more of a person that gave up, rather than a failure. I didn't have what it took at the time, because I was very prone to get discouraged very quickly and stop doing what I was doing. With this band I was never one to give up. (Although My Chemical Romance cites as influences everything from Queen, Thursday and Iron Maiden and to Morrissey, Black Flag and the Smashing Pumpkins, it is often referred to as an emo band, a label the band vigorously protests. Originally used as shorthand for the "emotional hardcore" subgenre of punk that originated with Washington, DC, it now refers to a vaguely defined genre of punky, goth-leaning indie-rock whose adolescent followers are stereotypically shy, angst-ridden and prone to depression and self-injury. Way has called emo "a pile of $h!t," but My Chemical Romance's dramatic style connects with a very teenage intensity of emotion. In interviews, Way and other band members have openly discussed their mental-health issues, and their penchant for tight jeans and eyeliner makes them look very much the part.) RB: You really hate being called an "emo" band. Why do you despise that term so much? GW: I don't like any term that to me seems lazy or an easy term for something that's not easy to describe. I also think it's frustrating. We were so the opposite of the emo band that we couldn't get booked playing shows, because there was this budding emo scene, and we literally were touring with Christian-metal bands, or other bands that were very off-kilter as well. We were almost created in opposition to that. We were like the answer to what was happening. We didn't fit in with this dungareed, moppy-haired, whining-about-girl type of nonsense. I just wish people would realize that what happens with My Chemical Romance is completely exclusive from any other kind of genre of music. What we have is extremely special. And we've worked very hard to get it there. So it's an insulting term in the fact that we're lumped in with bands that didn't create that. They didn't put in the work and they didn't slug it out to create something that was unique for us and our fans. It's just for us and the fans, it's not for anybody else. If the fan base is huge, that's awesome. If it's small, same thing. The whole phenomena of the band has nothing to do with what people are calling emo. It's not at all like that. It wasn't founded on the same things. The blood that went into it was different. [Emo] didn't have the spit, it doesn't have the grit of it. It's not unique. It's just pop-punk all over again. Now it's pop-punk with eyeliner. All of it's boring and really redundant. That's why it's frustrating, because it was difficult for us starting out because we were nothing like that. RB: What do you see on the horizon after this tour? GW: I see our first kind of lengthy break. We're gonna commit to trying to have at least six months off before we even talk about making something else. And then at that point, hopefully, we will have done enough living to make something. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archi...1/31/2003399701
February 3, 200817 yr Romancing MCR Fans AH, chemistry. The overwhelming response at the My Chemical Romance concert on January 25 only goes to show that chemistry is not limited to that between two people; it can also spark a reaction between an American rock quintet and thousands of people who just want good music. When I found out that My Chemical Romance will be performing at the Fort Bonifacio Open Field, I immediately devised a plan to ensure I would see the concert. By hook or by crook, I had to go see MCR live. Much gratitude goes out to a dear friend who supplied me a ticket (without coercion or violence). I was all set to go. The concert is part of the Asian leg of their Black Parade tour. I arrived at the venue 30 minutes before 8 p.m., the time it was scheduled to start. I don’t know why I bother showing up to concerts early since they hardly ever start on time. But this was MCR, and so I let it slide easily. An hour later, opening act Pop Shuvit came onstage. The band is reminiscent of a Malaysian version of Linkin Park on speed. Pulsating with energy, Pop Shuvit gave audiences a taste of their rap-rock tunes, with a vocalist occasionally singing through a megaphone, and a band member controlling turntables right in the middle of the stage. At one point, Slapshock frontman Jamir Garcia came up the stage for a vocal fusion with the band. Garcia’s piercing vocals complemented Pop Shuvit vocalist Moot’s rapping. The band’s mixture of music is not mainstream yet, and it was a pleasure listening to something fresh. Despite that, their tunes are quite a far cry from MCR’s style, which is what the audience came to hear. Finally at 9: 30 p.m., the lights dimmed, and as a banner with the band’s name emblazoned on it lowered itself against the backdrop, the audience rose from their seats and erupted in deafening roars. We were greeted with “This Is How I Disappear” as the opening number. MCR vocalist Gerard Way seemed to enjoy watching and interacting with the audience, occasionally requesting for the spotlight to shine on the audience, who, from my standpoint, appeared as a sea of black, much like participants of a black parade. I would twitch whenever Gerard dropped the F-bomb not because of my innocent ears (dear Lord, definitely not because of that), but because of the overwhelming number of children I saw watching with their parents. The band performed “Welcome to the Black Parade” off their third album The Black Parade, and Gerard requested the people to sing along and provide the vocals instead. He was not met with disappointment. Soon after, he’d pump his fists up in the air, and the audience would be quick to follow; such a fine and amusing act of puppetry. It didn’t take long before he exercised his newfound power over the people, and everyone willingly obliged. Indeed, the night was an entertaining interaction between performer and audience. What I find most attractive about the band is its theatrics. Musically, they sound like Queen and Green Day rolled into one, with an anatomy supplied with powerful orchestrations, the overwhelming twang of guitars as well as the complementary melodic support of a full orchestra (which would have been sweet had there been one in the concert), and the pounding effect of their drum beats. Given the band’s rebellious nature, their songs dominate the “Anti-depressants” playlist on my iPod for a reason. Seeing them live though is a hundred times the experience of listening to them merely through an MP3 player. The concert was also a theatrical experience in terms of mood, reflecting much of what their songs are about — a strange curiosity and fixation with darkness but, at the same time, the glory of rising against any opposing force. The lineup began with upbeat songs in the beginning with bright lights shining against the band, to a more mellow “Cancer” and “Desert Song” toward the end — complete with Gerard’s dramatics of lying on the stage floor, to be capped off with the explosive “Famous Last Words” as the encore. The concert was nothing short of explosive. The band, despite appealing to a certain niche, pulled off connecting with the audience, male or female, young or old. Indeed, MCR’s energy was contagious as they successfully satisfied their fans in Manila. http://blogs.inquirer.net/soundtrip/2008/0...ncing-mcr-fans/
February 17, 200817 yr NEW MCR DATES IN THE US Well, well, well. Here we go again. I know it has been a long time since we have written you guys. We have been very very busy touring in places that we have never been. To all of our fans in Southeast Asia, THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts. What an amazing time we had and you all made us feel so welcome the entire time. We will be back in your part of the world as soon as we can. We are also just finishing up the process for our CD/DVD "THE BLACK PARADE IS DEAD!". As soon as we have a solid release date on it, we will let you all know. It was filmed over a few weeks in October and looks incredible. We wanted to let our fans in the US know that we are going to give it one more pass before we go write a new record. We are really excited about the tour. Our good friends BIlly Talent and Drive By are coming with us. We could not think of a better tour to go away from The Black Parade. Below are some dates and there will be more coming. We promise to keep you guys posted as we get them booked. We wanted to come to these places. We selected them. We really love the venues we are playing and wanted to get away from big shows for a while. When we started this thing, we could feel you guys right in front of us. It is time for that to happen again. See you soon. Fri/3-28 Tempe, AZ On Sale Thu, 2/14 at 10:00 am MST Sat/3-29 Tuscon, AZ Sun/3-30 Las Vegas, NV Thu/4-3 San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield On Sale Sun, 2/17 at 10:00 am PST Sun/4-6 Irvine, CA BAMBOOZLE ON SALE NOW! Tue/4-8 Portland, OR Fri/4-11 Salt Lake City, UT Sun/4-13 Denver, CO @ The Fillmore Auditorium Pre-Sale Fri, 2/15 at 10:00 am to Fri, 2/15 at 6:00 pm MST Tue/4-15 Kansas City, KS Thu/4-17 Chicago Sat/4-19 Detroit Thu/4-24 New Orleans, LA Fri/4-25 Baton Rouge, LA Sat/4-26 Houston, TX Sun/4-27 Dallas, TX Mon/4-28 Austin, TX Fri/5-2 Memphis, TN mychemicalromance.com theblackparade.com
February 20, 200817 yr Yeah I think it's gonna be 2009 before it hits the shops. Looking forward to the DVD though, maybe we're lucky and there's a new song on it aswell.
February 20, 200817 yr http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t153/EmThePem/ScreenShot006-1.jpg Apparently it looks like this. Now for sale in the H&M shops.
February 20, 200817 yr Yep it is, I read somewhere the shirt costs around 10 pounds so it's pretty much for everybody to buy. Next time I'm gonna hit the big city, i'm gonna take a look in the H&M store.
February 20, 200817 yr It is indeed. That's around 15 euro's and you can't seem to buy much these days for that amount of money :(
February 27, 200817 yr Hello to our dear fans We are pleased to announce a show at NYC's one and only, Madison Square Garden. I know that its not a special small club show like the others on the tour coming up through the US. MSG holds a special place in our hearts. About 12 years back, my big brother took me to see The Smashing Pumpkins at that very venue. I turned to him and said "this is what I want to be...this is what we have to do...one day we are going to be on that stage." He felt and thought the exact same thing. Lo and behold..here we are announcing the show of all of our dreams. We wanted to share this special night with all of our hometown area fans. This is a great goodbye to "the Black Parade" tour and the beginning of the next chapter in MCR. Not only that, but we get to share it with our best friends in the world, Taking Back Sunday and Drive By. We can only hope that one or a few of you will feel the same thing at the show and a decade later, be on that stage. Love to all of you, see you there. Mikey Way
February 27, 200817 yr MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE STAR ATTACKED BY COMIC BOOK MENTOR MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE star GERARD WAY has been accused of stealing ideas for his graphic novels from his one-time mentor, comic book icon HART FISHER. Fisher published the rocker's On Raven's Wings comic when Way was a teenager, but now he's lashing out at his one-time protege for "ripping off" his writings in the singer's Dark Horse comic book series The Umbrella Academy. The angry publisher rages, "(He's) ripping off my old message and many of my actual written bits. I'm in the process now of going through the lyrics and matching up where he has straight up ripped me off from my old editorials." But Way is refusing to hit back at his old mentor, insisting instead he has attempted to reach out to Fisher. In a statement the My Chemical Romance star says, "I sent him an email years ago... thanking him for believing in me, and never got a response. "I'm not ashamed of what I did for him, and wanted to see him in person and thank him. I've never had the chance." http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/artic...0mentor_1060801
March 2, 200817 yr My Chemical Romance To Do One Last Lap Of The Map My Chemical Romance will do a final US tour before heading to the studio to start work on their next album. The tour will start in Tempe, Arizona on March 28 and conclude with a big bash at Madison Square Garden in New York on May 9. The last tour for MCR was the big venue Projekt Revolution tour with Linkin Park but this final fling will see them play a lot of more intimate venues. Billy Talent and Drive By will join MCR for this round of gigs, while Fall Out Boy will be guests at the Madison Square Garden show. "We are really excited about the tour," the band said in a statement posted on its website (www.mychemicalromance.com). "Our good friends Billy Talent and Drive By are coming with us. We could not think of a better tour to go away from 'The Black Parade.' We wanted to come to these places. We selected them. We wanted to get away from big shows for a while. When we started this thing, we could feel you guys right in front of us. It is time for that to happen again." http://g8.undercoverhd.com/imgsresized/article/070127mychemicalromance_1861.jpg Dates are: 3/28 Tempe, AZ @Tempe Beach Park 3/29 Tuscon, AZ @Rialto Theatre 3/30 Las Vegas, NV @The Joint 3/31 Las Vegas, NV @The Joint 4/3 San Francisco, CA @Warfield 4/4 San Francisco, CA @Warfield 4/6 Irvine, CA @Bamboozle Left 4/8 Portland, OR @Crystal Ballroom 4/9 Portland, OR @Crystal Ballroom 4/11 Salt Lake City, UT @Great Salt Air 4/14 Denver, CO @Fillmore Auditorium 4/15 Kansas City, KS @Memorial Hall 4/17 Chicago, IL @Congress Theatre 4/18 Chicago, IL @Congress Theatre 4/19 Detroit, MI @The Fillmore at State Theatre 4/20 Detroit, MI @The Fillmore at State Theatre 4/22 Cleveland, OH @The Agora Theatre 4/28 Austin, TX @Stubb's 4/30 Birmingham, AL @Sloss Furnace 5/2 Memphis, TN @Beale Street Festival 5/3 St. Louis, MO @Pageant 5/4 Columbus, OH @Lifestyle Pavillion 5/6 Philadelphia, PA @Electric Factory 5/7 Philadelphia, PA @Electric Factory 5/9 New York, NY @Madison Square Garden (with Drive By & Taking Back Sunday) http://undercover.com.au/News-Story.aspx?id=4238
March 16, 200817 yr DON'T STEP DOWN - JUST AWAY How desperate for work could Djimon Hounsou possibly be? A gifted actor who received Oscar nominations for his supporting roles in Blood Diamond and In America, Hounsou's appearance in Never Back Down alongside a cast of high school soap-opera alums is bewildering, to say the least. The film, of course, is far from decent, but one could certainly make the argument that it does hold its own as one of the most enjoyably awful movies of the year. When Jake Tyler (Sean Faris, Reunion) moves to Orlando to support his younger brother's aspiring tennis career, all he brings with him are his scattered belongings and a troubled past. His reputation as a brash fighter with a volatile personality precedes him, and it isn't long before a student named Max Cooperman (Evan Peters, Mama's Boy) is introducing him to the underground world of mixed martial arts. When word of Jake's ability reaches Ryan McCarthy (Cam Gigandet, The O.C.), the regional MMA champion wants to see how he stacks up against a new adversary. After being embarrassed in his first bout with Ryan, Jake goes under the tutelage of Jean Roqua (Hounsou), a legend in MMA who ends up teaching him more about life than just how to fight. There are two clear sides to director Jeff Wadlow's (Cry Wolf) film. The narrative side shows why writer Chris Hauty (Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco) hasn't written a movie in 12 years, as the predictable script is plagued with dreadful lines such as, "Your handwriting is harder to read than The Iliad" and "Babes - the one thing better than brawling." Furthermore, when seemingly every character is given an identical sob story to tell from their past, the attempt at giving the plot some depth only makes it feel more artificial. The better side of the movie relies heavily on its action sequences. Clever editing and cinematography combined with excellent work by fight choreographers Damon Caro (Live Free or Die Hard) and Jonathan Eusebio (Balls of Fury) make for some highly entertaining fight scenes. Outside the gym, there are subtle cinematic touches, such as shooting in Jake's home with a handheld camera to symbolize the state of his broken household, that show the film does have at least some artistic merit. Hauty tries to add some spice to the story by developing a romance between Jake and McCarthy's girlfriend, Baja Miller (Amber Heard, Hidden Palms). But to say the relationship is unconvincing and shallow would be a tremendous understatement. Thanks to Heard's truly awful performance, Baja comes across as a superficial, unintelligent flirt who knows that her looks are all she has going for her. The writing for the pair turns out to be no better - one moment they're pissed off at each other, the next they're inexplicably making out. Meanwhile, loading the soundtrack with music from the likes of Kanye West, Soulja Boy and My Chemical Romance, while constantly filling the screen with half-naked girls and ripped, shirtless guys, gives the impression that the movie is just trying too hard to make up for its lack of substance. If there is one scene that summarizes Never Back Down perfectly, it is when Jake and Max are stopped at a red light and the Hummer behind them gets a little close to their bumper. Jake gets out of the car and curiously proceeds to beat the $h!t out of all three guys in the Hummer, leaving the audience doing three things: cheering, laughing and asking, "What the hell just happened?" http://media.www.diamondbackonline.com/med...y-3266143.shtml
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