La Cage is an ambitious French action series created by Franck Gastambide and Sylvain Caron. Who remembers movie classics like Rocky, Bloodsport, Kickboxer and so on? These movies told a story about a talented underdog who did everything he could to reach the top. Often he had a very big inner motivation to achieve his goal, which made him overcome all obstacles, no matter how big.
In this trend, Netflix has released a series that is clearly based on these old classics. Taylor (Melvin Boomer), a young boy, lives with his mother and wants nothing more than to reach the top of the UFC. He has been training in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) at the local boxing club for quite some time, but he cannot get the respect of his coach Boss (Franck Gastambide) and his permission to train with him as a professional fighter. He is gradually losing courage until one day the great champion Ibrahim (Bosh) comes to the club and challenges everyone to spar with him. Taylor gets the chance he has been waiting for for years.
The premise is clear: A young fighter gets a chance to prove himself and rise to the top. But it quickly becomes clear that this series doesn't live up to the standards of its classic examples.
Problem one quickly becomes apparent upon watching the first episode: Taylor himself lacks conviction. Saying that you want to be a professional fighter means nothing if there is insufficient underlying motivation shown for the rest. The character itself is not bad, but to simply want to reach the top of the UFC requires perseverance, training, discipline and talent. A good underdog needs a serious dose of perseverance, but in this case it seems more like a dream that he is pursuing. As a result, the series misses the mark from the start.
The premise is clear: A young fighter is given a chance to shoot himself to the top and must prove himself throughout the series.
Problem two: A confusing plot. Granted, it's never easy to recreate acclaimed classics. But if you constantly put the main thread on hold to burden the viewer with incredibly stupid subplots that also lead nowhere, then you have a serious problem. Often these subplots also only have the purpose of promoting other well-known names in the UFC/MMA instead of forming a better whole with the story.
The whole thing looks nice and there are some pretty good action scenes in it. The moments when Taylor is actually in the ring, we are treated to some spectacular fight scenes. The training montages are also made in such a way that you learn quite a bit from them. In that respect, the series does what it has to do.
But to be fair, this series makes a mess of a potentially fascinating story. Too bad, because the resources are there and the series does try to make the whole thing seem grand. But as mentioned above, the whole thing falters far too much.
Our main character is also simply too fickle in character throughout the series to be considered credible for even a second. One moment he goes all out, and a few scenes later he suddenly has doubts and wants to just throw in the towel. For God's sake, man, do you want it or not? As well as his relationship with his mother and stepfather, both of whom clearly don't give a damn about him, it's frustrating to follow as Taylor seemingly never realizes that he's being used all the time.
The main antagonist Ibrahim is okay in itself. He is quite intimidating as a proud and aggressive champion who wants nothing more than to put Taylor in his place. But unfortunately this storyline is quickly put on hold because of, as mentioned above, stupid subplots and it only comes to the climax at the end that you have been waiting for the entire series. Despite everything, the final battle is still entertaining enough to almost make the whole thing fall into the abyss. But this too is undone by a rather anticlimactic cliffhanger with which the whole thing ends.
Well, I can't hide it. If you have seen films like Rocky, Kickboxer or more recent projects like the film Warrior from 2011 then you know what this series is missing. Now that a second season is coming I hope that it will be able to put things right at least a few things.
About the writer, Karzal
Mike (1995) has been a member of MySeries since 2016 and is mainly active on the English version of the site. Since 2018, he has been actively translating news articles, columns, reviews and basically everything that ends up on the Dutch site. The original articles, columns and reviews were actually written by others. During the week Mike can be found at IKEA, where he is a national systems specialist and occasionally also in the classroom to teach an English lesson. In addition, Mike logically enjoys watching series and has actually been spoon-fed this from an early age. The genre doesn't matter, there is a place for everything in the otherwise busy life.