Any fan of Pride or the UFC knows that Mirko Cro Cop Filipovic is the greatest MMA fighter there is and I am sure those will be excited about his first motion picture release.

Axon Rey (Filipovic) is a heavily decorated war hero and former tactical police officer who has been recruited by a covert government organization to fight enemies of the State. Schooled in the martial arts and the latest high-tech weapons, Rey, now code named Sphinx, is an elite member of the Sanction Division of SATO (State Anti-Terrorist Organization), a clandestine collective of assassins under the direct control of SIN (State Intelligence Network). Sphinx failed his last assassination mission. Normally, the state dealt with such a failure easily--it executed the executioner. Since Sphinx is their top assassin, his controller, Janus, decided not to eliminate him, immediately. He sends him to a rehabilitation island called Gulag 7 where Sphinx must face 5 opponents: other government operatives who have been sent to the island for various reasons. Refusal to fight means death. Now, he must fight his way off the island. It's kill or be killed.

Now let's not look at this film as if it's a big martial arts production as it is far from that, this is Director's Mark Burson's second film and the man does show promise. This reminded me of the old Seagal movies from back when the man was fit enough to do a good action film. The story is not original by any means but it is a popular genre, you get a cross between "Universal Soldier" and toss in any spy film like "Bourne Supremacy" and you get what the movie is going to be about. I thought the story was engaging enough to hold my interest, it was the fight scenes that needed tot be better and also there was not as many of them as there should of been considering who the star of the film is. It's obvious that Mirko needs work on his acting skills but he wasn't half bad considering the rest of the cast wasn't that great either. This is one of those film's you might watch to kill a few hours, nothing special but entertaining enough not to put you to sleep. I would recommend this to fan's of both the genre and the fighter's as both should find this at least entertaining. The DVD comes with the bonus features that include:

Making Of Featurette

Interview with Mirko Cro Cop Filipovic

Trailer

Released by BCI. ** 1/2 Out Of *****