The critics have not been kind to "The Condemned", but that should come as no surprise. None of WWE Films' releases will ever get a fair shake in mainstream media, due to a lot of media outlets having a pre-conceived bias against WWE. In this case, however, they don't know what they're missing, and don't seem to care.

When we first meet Jack Conrad (Steve Austin), he's in a prison in El Salvador, the end result of a black ops mission for the US Government in which he was caught by the El Salvadoran government. We don't know about the black ops until later in the film, a key plot point that most critics have chosen to ignore while trashing the movie. Conrad doesn't say too much, not quite as chatty as Austin was cutting promos in the ring. He does get off some choice one-liners that everyone knows from seeing the overplayed video packages on WWE-TV.

Not all of the action is on the island, however. We go back stateside and find that Conrad has a girlfriend that he supposedly left behind to go on his mission a year ago. The ultimate death match, if you will, is being broadcast on the internet by a brazen television mogul-wannabe, Ian Breckel. Unable to ascertain any factual information from Conrad on his background, Breckel invents a backstory that makes Conrad out to be worse than he really is. A veiled shot across the bow at the tabloids, no doubt. Conrad's chief competition is McStarley (Vinnie Jones), like Conrad a former special forces operative who has no compunction about killing his opponents since it's become second nature.

Once the government locates Breckel's island playground and begin to move in, Breckel decides to turn tail and run, this shortly after it appears that McStarley has won the competition with Conrad face down in the water. Of course you know it's not over yet.

Is "The Condemned" as bad as critics claim it is? No, it's not. The reviews I read glossed over or ignored details that became key to the plot. The critics went in having decided that the movie was a dud, and nothing was going to change their opinions. Their loss.

Will there be a sequel? Will Jack Conrad return? I doubt it very seriously. It all depends on what the box office figures look like by tomorrow, but you know that WWE will put a positive spin on it by the time Backlash starts. "The Marine" has fared much better in DVD rentals & sales than it did at the box office, and I imagine the same held true for "See No Evil". "The Condemned" will follow suit. Rumors persist that Triple H's long-awaited project, "Journey of the Dead", will finally start shooting next year, and one account I read a few weeks back added the likes of Batista, Shawn Michaels, Bobby Lashley, & Undertaker to the cast, which makes that rumor a pipe dream. However, before they even start shooting "Journey", Vince McMahon might want to consider changing genres again for his next film. Comedy, I think, might be the answer.