The Condemned (2007) Critic Reviews

"Battle Royale," if you've never seen it, is a fantastically sadistic and unapologetically brutal Japanese film from 2000 about miscreants dropped on a jungle island with orders to kill each other for a reality TV show. The Condemned is pretty much the same thing with half the satirical wit and twice the number of wrestlers.Read the full review

The Condemned isn't post-modern junk, smirky junk, faux junk or clever junk. It's pure junk, with a certain integrity to it.Read the full review

The film keeps adding layers of superfluous nonsense to its plot until all that's left is glowering ultra-violence and a whole lot of missed opportunities.Read the full review

There are stretches when it becomes tedious and insufferably self important. There's even a late scene in which the movie turns preachy.Read the full review

Picture aims for nonstop thrill ride, but for all its brainless brawn, it has plenty of stops and few real thrills.Read the full review

It's hard to imagine an audience that won't break up in laughter at this bewildering mixed message: Enjoy this movie, but you really shouldn't be watching it.Read the full review

Condemned is, if nothing else, an object lesson in how to punish women for fun and profit. But it's all for a point, the filmmakers would have us believe. One suspects that's a point of sale.Read the full review

This is the worst kind of movie, one that insults its audience by purporting to condemn violence while simultaneously reveling in it.Read the full review

Tailor-made for those who like their violence multifaceted and their women monosyllabic.Read the full review