Wonderful character development!

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

People are voting emotionally.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Direct-to-video MMA films have always been an easy target. While MMA has long since captured the mainstream, more traditional karate and kickboxing flicks have metaphorically beaten the small screen cage fighter to the ground and kicked him as he lay. TAPPED OUT shows that the subgenre is finally getting to its feet, ready to be taken seriously. Despite the film's occasionally ridiculous narrative decisions and other shortcomings, I am genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed this movie. This is a serious coming-of-age story with a martial arts theme, and I definitely recommend it.The story: A maladjusted teenager (Cody Hackman) working off his community service at a local karate dojo embarks on a quest to confront the murderer of his parents (Krzysztof Soszynski).There are many reasons that this movie might have failed, not limited to its curious casting and status as a KARATE KID knockoff, but it perseveres. At first glance, Cody Hackman appears to be your average prettyboy but turns out to be a real-life competitor who delivers an strong performance as a steadily-improving martial artist. His sensei is played, of all people, by old Michael Biehn, and Biehn somehow manages to be 100% convincing as an instructor. The screenplay the two of them act out is also to its film's credit: the journey of the main character is refreshingly nuanced, with significant victories and setbacks throughout that are not directly tied to the buildup of the ending. Different forces pull him in different directions in a lifelike manner, and even when the movie resorts to moments of clichéd stupidity, these are at least grounded in logic. Stupid decisions are addressed in an almost self-aware manner by the script, and traditional martial arts are not downplayed.Like most movies marketed as MMA flicks, there is some disappointment in the false advertising of TAPPED OUT: UFC megastars Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida are prominently featured on the DVD cover, but are in the film for only ten minutes. Additionally, the ground & pound fight scenes are not about to outdo the likes of NINJA II's. With that said, the brawls are still a solid highlight of the film. Admirably foregoing slow motion and featuring decent editing, the dozen fights are at worst bearable and at best downright exciting. The choreography is far from ground-breaking – there's some intricate grappling, but that's it – yet the pace and dramatic components of the fights are admirable. I found myself actually holding my breath during some of the later matches simply because the filmmakers did such a good job of making them such close contests between characters I had invested in.There is no guarantee that traditional fight fans will enjoy this as much as me, and even I teetered on whether to give this a lower rating simply because it wouldn't matter to me if I never saw Cody Hackman in a martial arts movie again. While it may not have rewatch value, this action-drama is worth at least a single viewing and will probably do the trick for general martial arts devotees and MMA nuts alike. Rent it!

The movie all and all is what is to be expected. It's the typical David (good guy) Goliath (bad guy)story that many fight movies seem to emulate. There is two HUGE things in my opinion that prevented me from given this at least a 7. 1. The antagonist is HUGE compared to the main character. I guess it is plausible after all the training the guy a third of his size could win but not in dragged out fight. Not in a million years. It honestly looked like a typical high school student versus a WWE wrestler. They could of had the same affect and made it more realistic by not having the size difference as drastic. It just seems to obvious to me (David versus Goliath on crack). I would of had the antagonist his size or maybe a few weight classes higher than him. A guy doesn't have to look like a WWE wrestler to be intimidating. My second major critique is the fact that he's bound and determined to beat up the guy who killed his parents. He barely even attempts to contact the police and in the end its all good because he won the fight yet the bad guys not in jail. Not that the antagonist knows that the protagonist knows he killed his parents wouldn't he later go after the main character. The plot was basically someone kills my parents when I'm 12 and seven years later I win the fight and all is forgiven. The acting wasn't too bad and some of the screen writing was a little dry. Overall it was decent but those two facts I pointed out really destroyed this movie for me.

How many clichés can one possibly put into one movie? So his parents get killed during a robbery on his way home from a karate class (he is 12) then he sees a small piece of the guys tattoo. Fine. Then he is a 20 year old rebel still in high school, getting kids booze and stuff. Im like, 1. who the hell is even selling him booze? the dude is barely pushing 5' 5". As hard as his face is there is no way someone wouldn't ask him for ID. He gets being a janitor at a Dojo as community service but the Sensei takes pity on him and decides to let him practice his punching skills for an hour after the Dojo has closed. MIND YOU his uniform is the same uniform he was wearing at 12 years old and it still FITS PERFECTLY... WHAT?!? His love interest is the Sensei's niece, who is a secret rebel OOOOO BIG SHOKER THERE. She takes him to an underground fight club where SURPRISE SURPRISE the main dude fighting is one of the two guys who killed his parents. Fine if thats your storyline I'll let you have it, i've seen worse. The underground club decides to have a tournament... *really dude really??* to which he tries to enter but has to fight a next MMA guy to get in and OMFG HE WINS BY K.O *EYEROLL* His love interest is a criminology student *GASP* and starts looking for more info on him in which she finds out about his parents and stuff. The Sensei follows him to the club to see the match and gives him crap about it but says nothing to the niece he is oh so overprotective of and he is like "No young sir I shan't train you if you are going to fight in a club" BUT OH WAIT I was a friend of your parents' so yea of course I'll help. This movie could have cut down 45 minutes by not having so much useless slow motion scenes or even better the length of it would have been perfect if they actually focused more on quality over quantity. How in the hell is a short ass guy who is BARELY trained in KARATE going to beat a 6' 3" HEAVY WEIGHT SEMI-PRO MMA FIGHTER? and I know the natural response to that question is "but it's a movie" but even for a movie that is SO UNREALISTIC.I got to an hour and I'm STRUGGLING to stick to my guns and watch till the end. This movie is rubbish. The one thing that I'll give them is the cage fighting looks quite natural so HOORAH FOR THAT. I don't know why I'm even going to try to watch it till the end when I already know it will follow the route of "He beats the bad guy, gets the girl and a new family". Oh and PS to the creators of this movie KARATE IS NOT MMA!!2/10

Entertaining movie about a kid who witnesses the death of his parents in a carjacking gone bad - similar to the batman story. Only difference is that the killer doesn't know the kid witnesses it. The kid then trains for an MMA tournament to battle against his parent's murderer. That's the rocky part - the running, weights, boxing, mat wrestling, etc. The karate kid part if the one that endures from beginning through till the end.Nothing original about the story since its a lot like Never Back Down and the 3 movie franchises just mentioned.It also has a David vs Goliath appeal since that's extremely apparent in the climax of the movie.Michael Biehn is the only known actor - not cast well imo. This is your typical 'happy ending' type movie. who cares whether it seems unrealistic to the point of being fantastic.