The Condemned is a Stone Cold Steve Austin vehicle from the fine folks at the WWE. Had the movie just been a dumb action flick there's a good chance I might have recommended it. Alas, the film makers insist on making a statement and sending a message and do so with a sort of Neanderthal subtlety.

The Condemned features Robert Mammone as an egomaniacal TV producer who plots to create a hyper-reality show sensation on the internet. His plan involves rounding up some of the world's most evil criminals, dumping them on an island, and letting them kill one another off until only one remains. Of course all this divine carnage is to be captured by myriad tiny cameras he and his tech crew have set up all over the island.

The Condemned is a silly, preposterous, over-the-top actioneer that dares to commit the cardinal sin of trying to infuse a little social commentary. I could have forgiven the movie if only it were inspired or creative in its execution. Unfortunately, The Condemned is neither. The recent Shooter, as ridiculous as it was, plays like one of the greatest thrillers of all time compared to this nonsense.

Action films can be entertaining and meaningful. Terminator 2 used violence to push forth an anti-violence message, but the thing is, that movie was damn entertaining and offered up explosive action sequences to boot. The Condemned, by comparison, is more on par with that terrifyingly awful Steven Seagal flick On Deadly Ground. Do you remember that debacle? It's the one where Seagal spends the last fifteen minutes of the film delivering a hilarious monologue about protecting our environment, this coming not but two minutes after he blows up an oil rig in the middle of the ocean. Preach on Brother Steven!

In addition to the previous mentioned Seagal flick, The Condemned also takes action cues from The Running Man, Battle Royale, No Escape, and Rambo and tries to mesh them with the satirical edge of Natural Born Killers and the little seen Series 7: The Contenders, with a dash of Survivor thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately, none of this stuff really works.

Attempting to hold the film together is wrestling star Stone Cold Steve Austin, and while this ripped muscle man has the tough guy look, he appears uncomfortable throughout most of The Condemned and he isn't shot particularly well (with the cameras, I should clarify). James Cameron knows how to shoot Arnold Schwarzenegger. George P. Cosmatos (God rest his soul) knew how to shoot Sylvester Stallone. Sadly, director Scott Wiper knows how to shoot himself in the foot. He certainly has no success elevating Stone Cold Steve to mythic status, granted better writing certainly would have helped.

The Condemned - drags its social commentary along about as gracefully as a port-a-potty behind a Prius. And as a result is self conscious to the point of absolute absurdity. This movie shamelessly tries to have it's cake and eat it too, and the end result is a film that is witless, ugly, mean, and as laughable as it is condemnable. At least the WWE's last movie, the silly horror flick See No Evil, had no such pretensions, they knew it was a silly horror flick and, though no classic, it worked. Wiper presents us with a world full of unsympathetic thugs doing nasty, inhumane things to one another, and, believe it or not, this guy really, really wants us to care. Wipe this.