DVD In Review: Arena
Synopsis: David Lord finds himself forced into the savage world of a modern gladiatorial arena, where men fight to the death for the entertainment of the online masses.
Review: What we have here is one of these near future scifi plots that was kind of worn down and tired back in the late 80s and early 90s. In fact the movie Gamer (Gerard Butler) has more to offer than this, but for some reason last night I found myself compelled to download it through the Zune Market place on my X-Box because I was in the mood for some gratuitous violence, but was also curious to see if the movie was any good given that it has Samuel L. Jackson in a starring role.
The film centres on firefighter and paramedic David Lord (Kellan Lutz) who after the death of his wife in a car wreck in which he was intended to die goes on a complete bender in mexico gets picked up by a smoking hot brunette who tricks him into thinking he’s going to get lucky and tazers him.
Lord wakes up in a cell and soon learns that he is nothing more than a piece of meat in Logan’s (Samuel L. Jackson’s) sick and twisted Arena.
Over time Lord is tortured and conditioned to fight for the entertainment and profit of Logan, who broadcasts the Arena online via a video feed, which sees the gladiators fighting it out in a virtual arena, which leads the online viewers to believe that it isn’t real.
Lord after winning his first fight refuses to kill the loser and says he’ll not fight, which leads Logan and his partner Kaden (Johnny Messner) into taking extreme measures in order make Logan do their bidding.
During his incarceration Lord makes a friend in the form of Taiga (Daniel Dae Kim) who is another fighter that has also lost his wife. At least that’s what he believes.
Given that lord and Taiga have hit it off Logan and Kaden devise a scheme and tell Lord that if he doesn’t fight and win within a 3 minute period they will kill Taiga’s wife. So a fight is set and Lord is faced with an unknown opponent and with the clock counting down both fighters are faced with a live video feed of Taiga’s wife. At the close of the fight with just a few seconds to go Lord defeats his opponent and removes the samurai mask to reveal it is his friend Taiga that he’s been forced to fight and given that Taiga was faced with winning or seeing his wife killed Logan kills his wife having made the same deal with both men. The ultimate double cross.
This infuriates Lord and he calls Logan out by saying he will fight in all ten fights on the proviso that he gets to fight Kaden for his final bout.
Thus the bloodshed begins as Lord fights and kills his way through each opponent and sustains injury after injury, but finds an unlikely ally in Milla (Katia Winter) who nurses his wounds between each fight and winds up helping him get payback against Logan.
As far as these kind of films go Arena is a mild distractions if that. The fight choreography is alright, but given that we have all got used to some brilliant stuff in things such as 300 and the recent Spartacus TV series it isn’t anything to write home about.
The film has a wafer thin plot and if you thought Samuel L. Jackson was bad as Octopus in The Spirit he is easily at his utmost worst in this. He could give William Shatner a run for his money when it comes to hamming it up.
If you’re looking for a movie with action and a bit substance this isn’t the film you’re looking for. In fact you’d probably need a 4 litre bottle of vodka in order to get any kind of enjoyment out of this.
I’m not sure why, but I was hoping for something a little better. Most Jean Claude Van Damme movies are better than this, which is saying something because not many of those are that great.
Score 1.5/5
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