Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be checking out a sci-fi film from 1989. That movie is "Arena".
Now I've been wanting to watch this movie for quite a long time. However, due to various circumstances, such as not finding a decent copy of it online somewhere on YouTube, and certain scheduling conflicts, I was never able to get around to actually watching it. That said, I was able to pick up a 4 movie combo pack on DVD, which thankfully features this movie. Now in regards as to whether or not I'll cover any of those other movies in that 4 pack is something I haven't decided yet. For now, though, I really just want to cover this movie in particular.
Now if you've never heard anything about this movie, the premise of it is pretty simple. It's basically a fighting tournament, where a human is trying to rise the ranks against the aliens and become the champion. And...yeah, that's pretty much it. Now admittedly, I am a little curious as to how exactly a human ends up in a fighting tournament like this against a bunch of alien monsters, but hopefully, it'll make some level of sense when I get around to watching the movie. I'm also hoping for it to be really good, but there's really only one way to find out. And the only way I am gonna find out if it's any good at all 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 "Arena".
14 minutes later
So...there is an underground base for homeless people who have nowhere to go. And our main character's friend happens to live there. Interesting. Normally, whenever I see these sorts of tropes in sci-fi films, I would usually think of an underground resistance group trying to band together and fight to retake their world. Here though, in this movie, that's not the case. In fact, it's just a place where our main character's friend happens to live and is offering him to crash here. I gotta say, that is actually somewhat different.
14 minutes later
I am gonna say, guys, that I'm really liking the make-up effects and the costuming on all of these aliens. They look pretty cool. I really wish I had much else to say about the movie itself, but, so far, I haven't been given much to work with. That said, the movie has been pretty enjoyable so far, and I'm hoping it stays that way.
2 minutes later
O...K. I don't know what kind of music this is suppose to be, but it sounds...awful. Like, *really* awful. The singing is OK, but...my god, the music itself is fucking terrible. Thankfully, you guys can't hear it for obvious reasons, so at least you'll be spared the terrible music that I have listen to. God, you will please shut up, already?!
20 minutes later
You know, guys, how I said earlier that this woman's music sounded awful but she had a decent singing voice? Well, we're getting another song with her, and uh...well, it doesn't sound that much better. Granted, this music here is nowhere near as awful as it was the first time she started singing. But her singing here feels...a little bit off to me. I don't know why, exactly, but it just doesn't sound right to me for some reason.
12 minutes later
OK, I need to ask this because it's kinda bugging me slightly. But what the hell kind of dress is Jade suppose to be wearing?! It looks like she's wearing half-green leather with what looks to be like a black trash bag that was stitched together with it. It just looks really ugly when you mix the two together. But hey, you know what? Perhaps maybe I'm not into the fashion sense of what women wear in this universe, so what the hell do I know?
13 minutes later
You know what I just realized, guys? Well admittedly, I realized this a little while back, but Horn, the Arena Champion, looks kinda like the cyberdemon from DOOM. Except he's nowhere near as big as the cyberdemon was. Which, if that were the case here, then Armstrong would probably stand no chance against him whatsoever, especially in the condition that he's been in since he got poisoned. Granted, I understand what I'm saying is all trivial and stupid, but it's just something I wanted share with you guys is all.
The Review
Well, guys that was "Arena". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off here...OK. So...where to begin here...? Well, earlier, I did say that I had been wanting to watch this movie for a long time, and now that I finally got a chance to watch it for myself here, I can ultimately say that it was certainly worth the wait. Mind you, the movie does stumble in a couple of areas, but for the most part, the movie is still really enjoyable. At least, to me, it was.
So now, I gotta try and talk about this thing in a little more detail here. Let's start this review off proper here by talking about the writing. The story is honestly nothing special, where we have someone entering a tournament and trying to fight their way to the top to become number one. And in this case, we have our main character, Steve Armstrong, who is the first human to enter "The Arena" tournament, where the whole thing is set in space and there's a bunch of alien monsters who also partake in the tournament. Steve ends up being the first human fighter in 50 years to enter the tournament and wants to prove that he, as a human, can win it. Since the only other human that ever won the tournament was, as I just said, 50 years ago. And really, guys, it's a very simplistic plot, and if you've seen these kinds of movies before where it involves a fighting tournament, you kinda already know where it's going to end up. And this movie is no exception.
That said, the one thing that makes this movie rather unique is how the fights are set up here. Now for the most part, it's very similar to movies like "Bloodsport" where you can knock out your opponent out of the ring, or through a 10 count. However, unlike "Bloodsport", where it's mostly aiming for realistic standards, the fights in this movie are set up a little bit uniquely. Because throughout the fights with Steve, there are these colored spotlights that hover above you, which is apart of some handicap technology, in which it ensures that all of the fighters battle on equal grounds. So even if you're an alien monster of some sorts, you're not gonna be ridiculously overpowered as long as the lights are in effects. And because of that concept, the villains try to rig it against Steve in the final fight against the champion, and, well, like I said, if you've seen these sorts of movies before, you kinda already know how it ends, by which it backfires and the hero wins. And I know, to some people, that I kinda already spoiled the movie for you. However, it's not really much of a spoiler, because I've seen these sorts of movies before. And even for some people who haven't been exposed much to these sorts of movies, there's a very good chance that someone will pick up on the film's predictability and notice it. Mind you, just because the film is predictable, doesn't mean that it's automatically bad. It's just something you have to take for what it's worth depending on your experience with these sorts of movies.
There is one thing I do want to comment on in regards to what I talked about involving the handicap lights. During the final fight, the lights are being manipulated by Rogor's henchman, in order to rig the fight in Horn's favor. And shortly after the light gets manipulated, Shorty, who is Steve's friend, ends up noticing the lights are being tinkered against Steve's favor, so he goes to find the perpetrators and stop them. And while that's all well and good, the one question I had in my mind is why didn't he tell Quinn, who is Steve's trainer/captain about this before he went to go stop them by himself? If he told her, then I'm sure someone else on Steve's team could've came out to help him while Quinn remained there to give Steve moral support. It just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to go do this by himself when there was a possibility that he could've been killed by one of Rogor's henchman and it could've backfired on him. You know, it's those kind of lapses in logic that could potentially hurt the film a bit if you try to think on it too much.
Our characters here are mostly really likable. Our main character, Steve, originally just wanted to get back home to Earth after losing his job during a fight. However, through various circumstances involving Shorty, he ends up fighting in the tournament and you do feel like you have a reason to care about him through all that he's been through. Our supporting characters are also really likable, though admittedly, they don't have as much depth as our main character does. The only ones I feel are a little bit lacking are our villains. Specifically, I'm only gonna mention Jade and Rogor's henchman. Jade is suppose to be Rogor's girl and her personality is nothing short of flat and sorta lifeless. His henchman, I don't really remember much of anything about them other than their cool make-up effects. Rogor himself is a little bit weak, personality wise, but what ends up saving a bit is his acting, which I'll get to in a second. But I will say, for the most part, the characters are mostly written decently. So if anything else, I gotta give the writing team some credit in trying to flesh out some of these characters.
Now with that said, let's get into the acting. For the most part, the acting here is decent. There is one actor I want to give a special mention to, which would have to be the guy who plays Rogor. He goes by the name of Marc Alaimo. For those of you who don't know, he is mostly known for playing Gul Dukat, the main villain from "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine". It was a show that I briefly watched when I was younger, but I do remember his performance in that thing being great. And while his performance in this movie is nowhere near as good as his DS9 counterpart, it's still pretty good for what he had to work with. In fact, most of the cast did a pretty good job on their roles. The only one I have to contest is the actress who played Jade. She sounds very one-noted and doesn't have much of a range within her voice. I could also include her singing, however, I'll save that for when I cover music. But aside from her, the acting from everyone else is pretty good, and I can't say much else beyond that.
Special effects are mostly great. The make-up effects on the aliens are probably the biggest highlights of the entire movie, as a lot of them look really unique and creative-looking. The only one that looks sorta questionable is the make-up on Rogor's face. Now when I say that, I'm mostly referring to certain shots in the beginning where you see that some of his makeup looks like it hasn't properly applied yet. I should mention that his entire face is entirely silver-colored, and like I said, it looks really good, save for a couple of shots here and there where the make-up looks like it hasn't been fully applied. However, these are only noticeable if you really look for them. I did, because I'm a little more trained to noticed the smaller details. But it could be possible that you won't notice it, so it's just take it or leave it, really.
In terms of other special effects, the CG is a little cheap-looking. However, there really isn't a whole lot of CG used here, as most of the effects are practical, and the practical stuff is really good. That said, I am going to give the cheap-looking CG here a bit of a pass, considering that this movie was made on a lower budget. That said, the costuming here is a little bit questionable, and there's a couple of examples I want to bring up in regards to that. The first one has to do with that ugly colored dress that Jade wears where it's a mixture between green and black, and the material on this dress honestly looks like it was made out of trash bags that been knitted into a dress. Well, the black one does, anyway. The green part of it I don't know. It could be possible it came from a trash bag, but still, it doesn't stop the dress from looking ugly as shit. The other costume I wanted to mention was the wrestling singlet that Steve wears during his matches. Now admittedly, I haven't really seen a whole lot of wrestlers use training singlets like these in a long time, but I don't remember any of them looking as cheap as the one Steve wears! It looks really ugly-looking, and I have no idea if it looks that way because they bought a really cheap-looking singlet at some department store if they had hand-crafted it and they did a poor job at it. Either way, it looks terrible, though admittedly, it's only visible during the fights and not anywhere else.
Setting aside the costuming, the camerawork here is pretty good. The lighting here is lit really well. The sound-mix is mixed fine. The music, at least in terms of it's score anyway, is actually pretty good. I can't say the same, though, about the songs. Admittedly, there are only two songs in this movie that are sung by Jade's actress and they're both horrible. Now I have no idea if she really is a professional singer or not, but if this is the best she's able to give out, then I'm probably never going to listen to a single song she's put out ever again because these songs are just shit. Well...correction, the first song is pure shit, the second one is just really forgettable. Now why is the first song pure shit? Well, it's kinda hard to put into words, because I have no idea if the music was suppose to be some lame ass version of techno or not. But I'm gonna tell you, guys, if you ever get a chance to listen to this song while watching the movie, then prepare for some major ear rape, because the music for that thing sucked so much ass that I'm almost getting a migraine from even remembering it again! But anyway, guys, aside from those two awful songs, the music is mostly pretty good in it's score area.
Ultimately, guys, when everything is said and done, can I recommend "Arena"? Yes, I definitely can. Especially if you're a fan of these type of movies like, say, "Bloodsport", "Rocky", or even the first "Karate Kid" movie, where the main character has to take part in a fighting tournament and all, then you're most definitely gonna feel right at home here. And if you're also looking for something that's a little bit unique what with alien monsters taking part in the tournament, then it's possible that you're gonna end up loving this thing. Myself, personally, I really enjoyed it. Now, mind you, it's nowhere near as good as a couple of the movies I just mentioned, but I would still definitely rewatch it again at some point. And you know what? Considering the other 3 movies I have on this 4 pack, I may end up covering those at some point, maybe. It's not a guarantee, but it is definitely possible. For now, though, I think I'm gonna go and rewatch my copy of "Bloodsport" again, because just thinking about it now honestly makes me realize how much I love that thing. So I'm gonna go and do that next after I get done putting this review together.
And with that, guys, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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