Unchained Review: Rock and Roll Style and Strong Fighting

Release date: July 2, 2021
Running time: 85 minutes
Directed By: Raphaello
Written By: Raphaello, John Bryan, and Ilia Constantine
Starring: Taya Valkyrie, Eric Robert, Mair Mulroney, Maricris Lapaix, Roni Weissman, Kasarlina Wang, Svetlana Constantine, and Larry L Andrews.

An idealistic woman is kidnapped and forced to compete in an underground fight ring. Every night is a fight for her life as she plans to overthrow her captors and save the lives of many others doomed to the same endless cycle.

Unchained goes for a rock and roll style that is apparent from the start.  The film has a strong rock soundtrack that gets your blood flowing and lets you know where this film will go.  And the rock and roll style continues with the fight scenes and the badass female cast.  The fights are exciting and these fighters definitely sell the brutality of their situation.  There are some hard hits and drawn out fights that showcase the talent of these fighters.  I do wish that there was a little more variety in the fighting as it mostly takes place in one place and is a similar style, but overall the fights are exciting.

But where Unchained's fights are rough and exciting, the dialogue is rough in a different way.  The film has dialogue that is not believable at times and is poorly written or poorly delivered.  It is not everything and thankfully the main draw of the film is the fighting, but the dialogue is important to help understand what is going on.  It is especially bad during some emotional and angry scenes, which detract from the impact of it all.  And the effects of the film are questionable as well.  There is some very noticeable CG in a pivotal scene towards the end of the film that blunted any emotional impact it might have.  And the film also has cameras that are prominently featured that are also pure CG and quite noticeable.  And the camera work also is noticeably shaky at times, another distracting aspect.  I'm fine with shaky cam during action scenes, but this was during a quiet, dialogue scene that was very distracting.  But that being said, come to Unchained for the fights and action and you will enjoy it. 

Unchained has a strong female cast and rock and roll fighting and music, but has some distracting dialogue, effects, and camera work.

Pass on it.

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Unchained is available digitally and on demand on July 2, 2021.  

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