Welcome, one and all, to the "Video Game Movie Marathon" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we're closing out this marathon by taking a look at a movie based off a fighting game. The movie came out in 2006. That movie is "DOA: Dead or Alive".
Now, some of you might be asking why I haven't covered a video game movie based off a fighting game this entire marathon? There are a lot of options for fighting game based movies, so why haven't I considered it? Well, there's a few reasons. A lot of the ones that I know of are games that I have never played. I'm talking about stuff such as the "Tekken" movie, "Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture", the Street Fighter movies, "The King of Fighters", etc. I've not played a majority of these games, because I'm not that big of a fighting game fan. I mean, I like Soul Calibur, Super Smash Bros., and Bloody Roar, but aside from those, I'm not that interested in fighting games. Now I have seen stuff like the "Street Fighter" movie from 1994, and the first two "Mortal Kombat" movies, so they're ineligible. So, it kinda left me with very little options.
But then I happened to remember one other fighting game series that I actually did play a little bit of. Which would be the subject of tonight's movie. I have played, at least, one Dead or Alive game in my lifetime. That game being Dead or Alive 4, which, I believe, was one of the very first games I ever bought with my own money for the Xbox 360. Mind you, this was a LONG time ago, but I do happen to remember that much about it. I remember liking the game a bit, even though I wasn't that familiar with the Dead or Alive franchise. Now, I should also mention that when I covered the "Ninja Gaiden" OVA earlier this month, I purposefully left out the fact that the main character, Ryu Hayabusa, was a part of the Dead or Alive franchise. And I did that, because if I mentioned it, then there might be a possibility that I would spoil what I might be covering later that month. So that's the reason why I did that.
Now, as I've just stated, even though I have only played one Dead or Alive game, I am not that familiar with the franchise. So I have no idea if this movie is even going to be loyal to this franchise. I have a strong feeling it won't be, but it might still be decent. I have no idea. The only way I'm gonna find out if this movie is even worth watching, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "DOA: Dead or Alive".
8 minutes later
Well, guys, I can easily tell you one thing so far. The acting in this movie is fucking terrible. I'm not totally sure if this thing is going to get any better, especially if THIS is the kind of acting I have to get use to for almost 90 minutes.
12 minutes later
OK, I know that I've stated that I've only played one Dead or Alive in my time, and I know I'm not up to knowledge about that series, but I don't remember Helena Douglas ever using roller-skates. I understand it's a very trivial thing to be bitching about, but it just comes across as strange to me, you know?
12 minutes later
You know, guys, I am willing to say one positive thing about this movie. The fight choreography is really fucking good. It honestly does feel like it would be something I would see from a Dead or Alive game. Everything else has been boring as shit, but, at least, the fight choreography is really good.
7 minutes later
So, now they're incorporating elements from that DOA Volleyball game into this movie. Wasn't totally expecting that. Not really sure how this contributes to the overall movie, but at least they're kinda staying true to the games...I guess.
20 minutes later
Guys, I know I've stated this earlier, but the fight choreography in this movie is just that fucking good. I REALLY wish I had more to say about this movie other than the fight choreography being really good, but I don't. This movie is just fucking boring. I never thought I'd say that about a fighting game movie, but it's true. This movie is putting me to fucking sleep! That's how boring this movie truly is. I'm genuinely hoping that the next half hour is going to be interesting, but I really don't think it's going to be.
14 minutes later
All right, I kinda have a stupid question that I'm probably not going to get an answer to. So our villain, Donovan, is wearing these sunglasses that is helping him fight and predict the moves of the fighters he has downloaded. And all of our main characters are fighting him. Why isn't anyone aiming for his sunglasses? Because, since Helena is the only one who's moves that Donovan hasn't downloaded, don't you think it would make more sense for the other fighters to distract Donovan so that way Helena can find a way to get the sunglasses off of him? I totally understand that I'm putting logic into a movie that is incredibly stupid, but I still feel the need to ask it, you know?
The Review
Well, guys, that was "DOA: Dead or Alive". Let me shut the movie off...OK. Dear lord, where do I even begin? Honestly, I'm trying to figure out what to start with, but even I'm kinda at a loss for words.
Um...I guess I should start by saying that, going into this movie, I kinda had a feeling that it was going to be a stupid, mindless action film. And that's what it kinda is, ultimately. Because there's barely anything here resembling a plot. Which, I guess is kinda on par with Dead or Alive, considering that Dead or Alive 4 wasn't that heavy on it's story. And I have to remind anyone reading this again that I've only played that one Dead or Alive game. I don't know how much of a story existed within the other Dead or Alive games, but if they're anything like this movie's story, then mission accomplished. I guess this movie really did stay true to it's source material. What I find funny about this is something I just noticed on the front of the DVD cover for this movie. It's a blurb from View London, and it states that this this movie is "The Best Movie Adaptation Of A Video Game So Far". Is it accurate to the games? I don't know. I haven't played enough Dead or Alive to fully say if that's true or not. Is it the best? Hell fucking no! You want the best adaptations of video game movies, go watch the first Mortal Kombat movie. Or something that I covered at the start of this marathon, which was "Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva". Those two are the BEST video game adaptation movies that live up to that blurb. And for anyone that mentions the live-action Sonic movies, I'm just going to pretend those people don't exist because those movies look like shit to begin with. At least, to me, they do. But anyway, I'm getting WAY off track here. So, this movie might be loyal to the games. But here's the thing. This movie, regardless of whether or not it's loyal to the games, is boring as shit. Our story is bare bones at best. Which, for an action film, that's perfectly fine, but you still want to have something here that will grab the viewers interest. And honestly, the only thing that WILL grab your interest is the fight choreography, which I'll talk about later on.
So, like I said, our story here barely exists. What I could grab from this is that our main characters end up getting invited to the DOA tournament, and the winner will win the $10 million dollar prize. Well, technically, it's a hundred million, but it doesn't really matter. So we have that as our framing device. We also have our characters who are in the tournament for different purposes. For example, we have Kasumi, who is searching for her missing brother that may or may not have died. I'll get to that in a bit. We have Tina, a former pro wrestler, who's in the tournament to prove that her fighting style isn't fake, seeing as how she came from the world of professional wrestling. Her dad's in the tournament, too, but he really doesn't play much of a factor into this movie. Ryu Hayabusa is also in the tournament, mainly just to follow Kasumi and try to convince her to go back home and stop this search for her missing brother. Not totally sure WHEN he got the invitation to join DOA, because I don't recall him ever getting an invitation, but oh well. Then there's Christie and Max, who are there to steal the prize money that is hidden somewhere on the island. We have our scientist, Weatherby, who has a thing for Helena Douglas, the other participant at the DOA tournament. And then there's our main villain, Donovan, who literally has all of the personality of dried paint. But then again, he is played by Eric Roberts, who I'll get to in a bit when I talk about the acting. And that's literally it for characters. We actually do have other characters who look like they came from the Dead or Alive games, but they're literally just thrown in here for the sake of this movie, so they really don't play any factor whatsoever. All of our characters are ridiculously shallow and lack any real depth. The closest we have to any actual background is during a flashback in which Kasumi was kidnapped, and was then rescued by Hayate, which is the missing brother that she's searching for. Aside from that, nothing much else comes from these characters. The only ones who come close to any likability is Tina and her father Bass. But then again, I'm being a little biased, seeing as how they come from a professional wrestling background. Everyone else is so fucking shallow that I couldn't tell you much about their personalities other than Weatherby has a thing for Helena, Zack has a thing for Tina, Max has a thing for Christie, and...wow, I just noticed that a lot of characters have a thing for each other. Which, I guess, sums up a majority of the character depth in this movie. Most of them have a thing for each other, and nothing of interest comes from it.
Speaking of which, I want to mention a couple of things about the writing in this movie that goes nowhere. For example, we get introduced to a volleyball game between Kasumi and Tina going against Christie and Helena. And again, I'm going to assume that they took this element from the DOA Volleyball games. Which I know are real, and if you're curious, look them up yourselves. This goes nowhere, because it ends up going into a no contest after another character named Ayane ends up popping the volleyball with her ninja star, which causes Kasumi to leave so that she and Ayane can fight each other. And yes, I did forget to mention Ayane, who was honor-bound to kill Kasumi if she left her home. It really doesn't go anywhere either, but that's neither here nor there. Another thing I want to mention involves Helena. Now earlier, I mentioned Christie and Max being in this tournament to steal the prize money. Well, Max finds out that Helena is 'the key'. What do I mean by this? Well, somehow, Helena has a tattoo on her body that has a code which unlocks the vault for the money. Now, on the flip-side to this, we also have our other main female characters captured, along with Ryu Hayabusa, by Donovan. Who ends up downloading their fighting data from some nanobots that were injected into their bodies before the tournament began. And he's able to get their data through a pair of special sunglasses so that he can copy their abilities and fight really well. He demonstrates this by fighting Hayate, who ends up turning alive after all. Big spoiler, in case you really cared. So after he kicks Hayate's ass, he ends up trying to sell the technology that he wore to fight Hayate to other businessmen across the world by transmitting it to them. But what I find strange about all this is that he still has ALL of that money in his vault. So, why exactly did he need to transmit the money digitally if he still has all of that physical currency within his vault? Unless if he had more money that I wasn't made aware of, then what was the purpose of trying to transmit the money if he already still has all of it in the vault? I don't know, but it didn't really make a ton of sense to me. Also, about that plot point involving the money, big spoiler, it ends up getting destroyed after the island blows up. So, we have another thing that goes absolutely nowhere in this movie. Also, and this is just based off the only Dead or Alive game that I played, but I could've sworn that the character of Helena Douglas played more of a part in that game. I don't know how that changes with the other games, but I happen to remember that Helena was more of a serious character in Dead or Alive 4. Here though, she's just used as a plot point that goes nowhere, and she herself also ends up becoming worthless, because she really doesn't have much of a character to speak of. So yeah, the characters in this movie mostly suck.
And I can easily say that the writing in this movie is mostly terrible, because we had story elements that go nowhere, and pacing is also a little bit glacial, mostly thanks to that volleyball game that served no purpose whatsoever. But with that out of the way, what about the acting? Oh boy, um...I can't believe I'm saying this, but there's one actor in this movie who turned in the best showing. And that actor is Kevin Nash. Yes, the man who can barely cut a fucking promo ACTUALLY turned in the best showing this entire movie. And that is really sad, because just about every other actor in this movie sucked balls, save for Tina, Christie, and Zack. Everybody else didn't fucking care. But then again, Nash wasn't in this movie for very long, so maybe he got the best out of this script for having very minimal dialogue. There's two other actors I need to make mention of. One of them is Eric Roberts. Eric Roberts sounds so fucking wooden that it almost hurts. But then again, his character, like I stated earlier, had all of the personality of dried wood. And Roberts didn't even try to make this character sound interesting in the slightest. If you want an example of good acting from Eric Roberts, go watch any episodes of "Justice League" where it involves the character of Gorilla Grodd. He's able to make that work, unlike his acting in this movie. The other actress I want to make mention of goes by the name of Devon Aoki. She plays Kasumi in this film, and it's horrible. How bad is it? Well, I want to give you guys a comparison. Because she plays another character from a different film called "Sin City". Do you want to know the big difference between her performance in "Sin City" and her performance in this movie? In "Sin City" she had no dialogue to work with. But it made sense there because her character was known as the silent assassin. And she was great in that movie. But in this movie, when she's given actual speaking dialogue to work with, it sounds so fucking wooden and lifeless that I wouldn't be surprised if this film killed her acting career. I don't know if she had anything beyond this or not, but I feel like this movie was a career killer for her. If I'm wrong on that, then so be it, but she sounded fucking horrendous in this movie. She does not know how to express an emotion whatsoever. It is just THAT bad. But anyway, as I just stated, most of the cast in this movie phoned it in, with the few exceptions being Kevin Nash, a couple of the main cast members, and the actor playing Zack. Beyond that, nobody else here tried. Which, I guess given how much they had to work with, it's not that surprising.
I can say, though, that, despite all of the problems I had with the writing and the acting, the fight choreography is really fucking good. Seriously, the fights in this movie look they might've came out from the Dead or Alive games. And that is really cool to see. Mind you, they're nothing memorable when compared to the fight choreography from other fighting game movies such as the 1994 "Street Fighter" movie or the first two "Mortal Kombat" films, but for what it is, it's still great. And I'm not gonna dump on the fight choreography for any real reason. If there really is any reason to watch this movie, watch it for the awesome fight choreography. It honestly makes this movie worth watching for that reason alone.
Special effects, what little there is here, is fine for what it is. CG, again, what little is used here, is perfectly fine, too. Camerawork here is really good. Lighting here is lit really well. Sound-mix here is competent. Music, well honestly, I couldn't tell you much about the score that was memorable. A lot of it is just really generic rock music that isn't going to make you want to head-bang along with it. It's just there for the sake of being there. Mind you, none of it is overly bad or anything, but like I said, none of it is going to stand out at you either. So, the score here, along with the soundtrack, is incredibly forgetful.
Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "DOA: Dead or Alive"? Um...God, that's a tough one. Well...I can probably recommend it if you want to watch something with friends on a bad movie night. If you want to riff on something, then this movie will probably have a ton of riffing material for you. If you're someone who's into plotless action movies, then sure, I could maybe recommend it on that end as well. But if you're looking for a GOOD movie, then fuck no. This movie is a massive turd that you can easily bypass. It really will offer nothing here, unless you want to watch if for the fight choreography. Other than that, you can easily skip this. It may possibly be loyal to the Dead or Alive games, but that doesn't make for a good movie. Shit, I mentioned back during my review for "Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children" where that thing may be loyal to the games, but it still sucked on so many levels. So, accuracy to the source material means nothing to me. This thing was boring as shit, and I honestly struggled on a couple of occasions to stay the fuck awake. That's how boring it really is. And now that I'm thinking about good fighting game movies, I may just go back and rewatch the first "Mortal Kombat" movie. Because, that to me, is a fighting game movie that is both fun on an entertaining level, but also still holds the title for the best fighting game movie ever made. So, I'm gonna go do that after I'm done putting this review together.
And with that, guys, we come to the end of the "Video Game Movie Marathon" for Reaction & Review. Wow...this has been a very interesting marathon to say the least. I kinda expected the worst from this marathon. And while I got a few turds out of it, I also got some surprisingly good results out of it, too. Again, that Professor Layton movie shocked me on how good it really was. So hey, it definitely wasn't a bust. I'm not totally sure if I would ever do another "Video Game Movie Marathon", but who knows? We'll just have to wait and see. Anyway, guys, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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