The Arena

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.

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

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 have seen this film four times now. It is a remake of the film, Naked Warriors (Pam Grier and Margaret Markov). Grier and Markov also made a film called Black Mama, White Mama (1973), a women in prison film. The Arena is not a bad remake--it owes much to the original film and to two other films/series, yes Ridley Scott's Gladiator and the series, Xena, Warrior Princess. It treats the women with a certain amount of respect and quickly focuses on their love/hate/love relationship. Another film of the same type from the Sixties: Thor and the Amazon Women.

This is a prime little exploitation flick with a couple of cute, costumed Playboy-Bunny gladiatrix being harassed by the local Roman invaders. It's an update of Roger Corman's Pam Grier classic from the early seventies, spiced up with some flash-cut editing, filtered cinematography and impressive location photography done in Russia. There's enough flesh peddling, sleazy sexual situations and action to reasonably satisfy today's B-movie fans, but it's all relatively kinder and gentler than viewers should expect from your typical exploitation flick. The most enjoyable thing about the DVD release is the mini-commentary supplements from the two lead bunnies. It's an amusing take on their adventures as low-budget movie stars and adds immeasurably to the enjoyment of the feature. Frankly, I'm surprised there aren't a lot more cheesy, sword-and-sandal ripoffs in the wake of Ridley Scott's enormously successful GLADIATOR. This is one genre where the sky's the limit!