As Dr. Seuss wrote: "Oh, the places you'll go."

In "Never Back Down," you go to a Beatdown, described as the "Super Bowl of Florida fight clubs ... everyone who brawls goes there."

It's like the dance-off in "Step Up 2 the Streets," but with 32 fighters in a no-holds barred competition. It also is announced via last-minute text message and draws a throng of onlookers who record the events on their cell phones and other handhelds.

---

'Never Back Down'

2 stars = Mediocre
Ratings explained

• Starring: Sean Faris, Cam Gigandet and Amber Heard.
• Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic material involving intense sequences of fighting/violence, some sexuality, partying and language -- all involving teens.

---

"Never Back Down," already positioned as "Fight Club" for teens, stars Sean Faris as high school student Jake Tyler.

His world has been turned upside down: His father died in a car accident in Iowa, his mother moved Jake and his younger brother to Orlando, and Jake is now the new kid in high school -- whose past catches up to him. Turns out a clip of him clocking another football player back home is all over the Internet.

That intrigues reigning bully Ryan (Cam Gigandet), who lures him to a party where he hopes to fight and humiliate him. In a pattern that will be repeated throughout the movie, Jake resists and then succumbs to temptation and temper.

In Round One, he loses. Badly.

That leads fellow student Max (Evan Peters) to introduce Jake to a gym where Jean Roqua (Djimon Hounsou) teaches mixed martial arts and has a steadfast rule: "No fighting outside the gym, no matter what."

So, what will Jake do? Fight outside the gym.

"Never Back Down" follows Jake as he hones his skills, flirts with a classmate named Baja (Amber Heard) and tries to stay away from Ryan. Circumstances conspire to lure him back into the ring; it's like something out of their classroom reading of "The Iliad," says Baja, a smart girl masquerading as a dumb blonde.

Directed by Jeff Wadlow ("Cry Wolf") and written by Chris Hauty, "Never Back Down" isn't exactly an SAT prep class. It's an energetic excuse for young actresses to don bikinis, for young men to strip off the shirts and engage in sanctioned and unsanctioned fighting, and for teens to feel as if it's them against the world.

Two-time Oscar nominee Hounsou injects intensity and class, and the young leads handle themselves well, too. Faris looks and broods like a young Tom Cruise, Heard seems to have stepped from a Teen Vogue shoot, and Gigandet is the villainous blue-eyed blond with a nasty daddy in his wealthy family.

Through flashbacks or back stories, "Never Back Down" demonstrates the consequences of drunken driving or solving problems with guns -- admirably missing on screen here. But it downplays the physical injuries fighting can deliver.

It wants to have it both ways: leading Jake into the gym and unleashing him outside. No matter how violent, fighters invariably recover from brawling, and there's even a sign of grudging respect between enemies.

From ancient Greece to film fairy tale, in less than two hours.