The Arena

From what I could see, the only reason this movie exists is to give some very beautiful Playmates multiple opportunities to display the nude female figure divine. Regretfully, the nude scenes are (for me anyway) pretty much destroyed by poor editing; the constant cuts and pseudo-artsy close-ups become very distracting after a while. Maybe they were trying to avoid letting us see the silicone <grin>?

The "actresses" can't act, even with their clothes off! Most of the characters are obviously speaking a different language overdubbed in English. As for the storyline, well, it's got so many holes in it, I wouldn't even know where to begin. Even the fights are poorly staged, their impact destroyed by dumb closeups and dizzying, confusing scene jumps.

Too bad, with a little effort, it could actually have been a fairly decent movie. The first step would have had to be, give the Playmates some acting lessons. Both vertical and horizontal.

One positive note: the scenes in which the women struggle to learn the fighting arts are actually quite well-done. You get the feeling the actresses enjoyed learning how to fight, and put themselves into it, without any phoniness.

I came into this movie expecting two things - a lot of nudity and not much of a plot. Neither one came to fruition. The story was surprisingly easy to follow and pretty much made sense. A group of slaves gets sent to the frontier of the Roman Empire; some are pressed into gladiator duty. The local governor is trying to assimilate the local populace into the Empire so he organizes "quality" gladiator fights for the entertainment of the people. He figures what could be more entertaining than watching some slave girls duel. They get trained and then they fight. It's not a great story, but it works.

The lead actresses are indeed Playboy material. However, they aren't particularly good actresses and there wasn't enough screen time for their assets. As such, these ladies were miscast. They could have found some girls who could actually look like they were fighters and it would have made this a little better.

The real killer in this movie is the cinematography. The color filters are straight up annoying. The emphasis on close-ups - while I'm sure used to cover up the cheap sets - made it hard to watch. And the average shot length on this must have been two seconds. A drunk monkey with an iPhone could have shot a better movie.

This story had potential. It was horribly undone by poor acting, awful editing, and fight scenes scripted by 10 year olds.

1st watched 10/12/2001 - 3 out of 10(Dir-Timour Bekmambetov): Hard to believe, american playboy playmates pose as female gladiators in this Russian film obviously financed by Americans for video release. This is actually a remake of a Roger Corman film of the early seventies and guess what(He is the executive producer of this film). Lots of violence, some sex but mostly cheaply done film trying to profit on the recent films that have been done in this realm. At least this is not too exploitative of the women in the film. They are more human than most of the men portrayed in the movie, but again this is an obvious movie that was created and setup for a particular purpose and it reaks of this.

I saw this movie in the bargain bin and mistook it for The Arena from 1974 , with Pam Grier. I bought it since it was so cheap and I was in a hurry. Only to find out it wasn't the movie I had in mind when I got home. No harm done I said to myself and decided to give the movie a go. Wrong idea. The scenery is plain, the acting is below mediocre (even extending to horrible) and the cinematography is boring as hell. For those into just nude chicks, pass the movie as well. While the 2 female "stars" (i believe i read somewhere they are former playboy models) rarely show any flesh.

If for some reason you still want to see this movie, please have brain-surgery

I'm astonished to read reviews recommending this film for its T&A factor. Considering it is clearly a B-level exploitation film starring two former Playboy Playmates, you'd THINK it had T&A aplenty but it has very little. The four female gladiators who are the leads spend most of their time dressed in dowdy rags that cover them from neck to knees. There are some brief nude scenes and a couple of brief sex scenes, but like the rest of the movie they are jump cut so aggressively that you have a lot of trouble seeing what there is to see. Plus the sex scenes are seriously underlit. It is literally hard to watch the movie because of all the jump cutting. The fight scenes are filmed the same way, which helps somewhat with the rather obvious lack of fighting ability of the gladiatrixes (who don't do all that much fighting -- the fighting is handled by more capable male actors, who were also heavily jump cut, just like the rest of the movie).

Most of the movie's dramatic opportunities are completely bobbled as well. The set up provides for plenty of drama: who shall live, who shall die, whom will be betrayed by whom, etc. Very little advantage was taken of it.

If you are looking for well done gladiator movies, any single episode of the Starz series "Spartacus" will put this movie to shame. Deathstalker and Barbarian Queen have MUCH better fight scenes as well as more and better T&A. "The Arena" is simply a failure, badly botched, not worth any attention at all. There are some MST3K-able bits, but even there the jump cutting is a problem. There is NOTHING to recommend this film. Do. Not. Watch. And if you do ... don't say you weren't warned.