Overview: When an amateur fighter is unwilling to throw a fight, his sister Anya (Olivia Popica) must travel to Rome and fight for an elite audience to help pay back her brother’s debt to crime boss, Julian (James Faulkner).

When she arrives, she’s taken by the merciless Janek (Michael Bisping) and quickly realizes she is among many women who have been abducted and forced to fight for a deadly trafficking syndicate.

Anya’s only options are to surrender to Janek’s demands or band together with the other women and take down their captors.

Blu-ray Verdict: Not exactly something that was asked for, or even seemed likely to happen (give that it has been some five years after the last entry in the franchise and a whopping 13 years since the original, we are now presented with Never Back Down: Revolt.

It is the storyline that sees Anya (Olivia Popica, The Devil Complex, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald), the nursing student sister of MMA fighter Aslan (Tommy Bastow), being forced to compete in elite underground fights after Aslan refuses to throw his latest illegal bout for promoter Julian (James Faulkner, Underworld: Blood Wars, Atomic Blonde).

Now working to pay off the debt Aslan owes for NOT losing, Anya takes a trip to Rome to partake in a special fighting event (that she’s promised will clear her brothers debt) in front of a high-paying elite crowd, where she’s held captive by UFC Hall of Fame Michael Bisping’s evil fight promoter.

In what is a notable departure from the previous two outings, Revolt is set in London (England) this time and also features scenes shot (supposedly) in Italy, which admittedly do raise the cinematic levels here.

Written and this time around directed by women, Audrey Arkins, who wrote the 2020 Anthony Hopkins film Elyse, provided the script and Kellie Madison directed this (which is actually her full-length sophomore attempt, on the back The Tank from 2017), and they are admirably aided by Tim Man (Accident Man, Boyka: Undisputed) as the films fight coordinator (which makes for some great hand-to-hand combat action, trust me!)

In conclusion, there is oh-so much to look at here on screen at any given moment, most all of it flying legs, feet, hands, arms and notably fists from the ladies and gentlemen in question, but there is obviously only so much you can do with the cast and the plot combined.

That said, the fights (in and out of the ring) are very well directed, well shot, well lit, and the character acting is as good as it gets for such a blood sport-imbibed film. Perhaps the film leans too much toward how these ladies look more than, per say, their actual real life fighting skills.

But come the end, I can honestly say Never Back Down: Revolt is true to its originally created mantra of bringing full contact, bloody sport to the cinematic mases, and that’s truly all that matters, is it not? This is a 1080p High Definition (2.00:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs.

www.SPHE.com