Customer Reviews

The Condemned (WWE)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

this book was great. It made you feel like you weren't reading a book but actually watching the movie.

"The Condemned" is a novelization of the movie staring Stone Cold Steve Austin, and was part of a short-lived attempt of the WWE to try to expand into different areas other than the traditional ones. There were three movies and three novelizations that I know of. I haven't seen the other projects, but after seeing the movie "The Condemned" I had to get a hold of this novel and see if there was much difference between it and the movie, especially since Rob Hedden wrote both the movie and the novelization.

For those that are unfamiliar with the plot of either the movie or the book, "The Condemned" is a variation of the old "The Most Dangerous Game" plot, which has been used in the jungle, action, war, western, science fiction, horror, etc. genres in movies for over eighty years. In this case, ten sociopathic murderers, eight men and two women, including one husband/wife team of spree killers, are plonked down on a forgotten and isolated island and promised both money and freedom if they kill off the others. There are several interesting gimmicks in "The Condemned". The first is that everything is going to be filmed and telecast over the Internet in hopes of getting forty million watchers at fifty dollars a pop. The second is that there is a time limit. Thirty hours, no more, and to enforce this, each convict is fitted with a leg bracelet that contains a bomb that will go off at the thirty hour mark, or if tampered with.

The big thing is that there is a joker in the deck, and it's Jack Conrad, who was caught in a South American country after doing a black bag job for the U. S. government. To get on the show, he has had to kill another convict in the prison in which he was rotting, although to be fair, that somebody was trying to kill him first. Some of the bad guys are just punks, and some are real villains. Conrad's main competition is Ewan McStarley, who is British, and a psychotic, sadistic, out-of-control sociopath, and is every bit as talented at murder and violence as Conrad is.

Then there is Ian Breckel who is producing the contest, and as the contest continues he becomes more and more unstable. He begins to lose control of some of his crew and his mistress, especially since it becomes more and more obvious that he is rigging the game for one particular character to win. The name of one of the characters will tell you who.

Hedden is an experienced writer, and has written for such shows as "MacGyver", "The Commish", "Star Trek: Enterprise" and the revivals of "The Twilight Zone" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" so you would assume that he is a good enough wordsmith to get the job done. While at times the novelization reads like a film script, with clipped descriptions and dialog, in the end Hedden rises to the job. "The Condemned" is a faithful adaptation of the movie, although there are some differences from the movie. The big difference is in the characterizations as Hedden manages to make some of the killers sympathetic IN THE CONTEXT of the novel. A few words here, a paragraph there, and Hedden manages to give enough background to enough of the characters to make you care about their fates. These are not nice people, Conrad included, but some are rounded out enough from the movie to make you care about their fates and to root for one faction or the other. Not that it matters, most will bite the bullet, it's the nature of the animal. We also get a better picture of who Jack Conrad and Ewan McStarley are as Hedden gives us a lot more of these characters backgrounds that is presented in the movie proper. The action though is more exciting in the movie, but that's way it goes, action is always more visual, and thus more visually realized on film.

The ending goes on a little too long, but that's okay. Yes, this is a novelization of an exploitation movie, but neither is it all that different than most of the male adventure/war novels and/or movies that are out there. If you like a good, fast-paced no-holds barred action book, with some larger-than-life characters and stunts, then this book is for you. You don't have to have seen the movie to enjoy the novel. Maybe a guilty pleasure, but well done, and worth reading for fans of this type of fiction. The title of this review is the best quote from the movie.

My wife and I liked the book, but thought the movie was visually better. We'd give the movie 3.5 stars for a fun popcorn movie. Better than average, but still Stone Cold Steve Austin needs to learn body language if he's going to be the next action star.

The main bad guy is the best part of The Condemned. A British actor who was in the awesome SNATCH movie, but can't think of his name right now. He's terrific in this film.

The backdrop is gorgeous and primeval for this death game. It is Survivor on steroids. Where there is literally one sole survivor. Even though it has holes and in plotting, and could have been written and directed to be one of the all-time best action movies, it still manages to give you at least a solid action/adventure romp.

Better than the last WWE movie, The Marine. They seem to be getting better and better.