I have found a Never Back Down review from Variety, which specifically comments on Amber’s performance. On a general note the reviews for the film have been pretty critical so far - some examples of title lines for the reviews include “Never Back Down no knockout” (Jam! Showbiz), “Teen beatings never end in stupid Never Back Down” (Seattle Post Intelligencer) and “Never Back Down is weak, formulaic” (Huntington Herald Dispatch). See more reviews here. Obviously you should see it for yourself tomorrow and form your own opinion. ;)

Amber Heard, on the other hand, has to be seen to be believed. If there were an award for best coyly sexual biting of lower lip by an actress in a leading role, she would win it hands down. Heard plays Baja (yes!), the other side of the Jake-Ryan triangle, and isn’t done any favors by all the preposterous slow-mo entrances and babe-alicious posturing. There’s more than enough random flesh parading through Never Back Down that an actual performance by Heard (soon to be seen, and far more appreciated, in All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) would have been welcome. Never Back Down exists in a world of beautiful people, beautiful homes and much unoccupied money, where the rules of physics and physiology are on a serious vacation — the human body can’t do or withstand the things this movie claims it can, and one can only hope that pic’s probable success doesn’t trigger a dramatic rise in schoolyard body-slams, arm locks and chokeholds.