Golden Arm

I have to say I wasn't expecting too much but was pleasantly surprised. The main actress Betsy Sodaro is great! She's like a better Melissa McCarthy. Give it a try for sure!

This was described to me as a film about female empowerment and mutually supporting women - but I thought I'd watch it anyway.

Glad I did this is a great, quirky little film with some great characters.

Mary Holland and Betsy Sodaro are a great double act. They have a real roughness about them that is really fresh and I warmed to them instantly. Betsy's irrepressible energy is perfectly counterbalanced by Mary's reserved, proprietary.

I loved them.

The story is simple but lean and glides past in a neat 90 minutes and has just enough to make it interesting without getting bogged down.

As a sport there is not a lot you can do with arm wrestling cinematically to make it exciting- this is mostly about the characters.

There are a few elements that may turn people off:

I love Betsy's gravelly voice but it does have a hint of the "Rick and Morty's" about it that some people may not like.

Some of the acting is a little uneven and some of the dialogue a bit cheesy - I thought that added to the easy tone but may not be for everyone.

As a man, I enjoyed this but it is a "girls first" movie and, although not overpowering, if "girls doing it for themselves" and labia based jokes are not your thing this may just dip out of your wheelhouse.

I would recommend giving this a fair go as it good fun and has a lot of heart.

Don't get me wrong, it is a very amusing movie. I had fun watching it. But the trailer gives sort of a wrong impression being a new "Over the Top" (1987), while in reality this is an Over The Top cross The Karate Kid with The Powerpuff Girls crossover.

So basically we get the trucker and arm-wrestling kind of thing from "Over the Top" (1987), we add the cheating sensei and the sorry-feeling disciple from the "The Karate Kid" (1984) final match and we top it up with "The Powerpuff Girls"(1998)-sorta girl-power thing. The only thing we remove is the actual "Over the Top" parent drama, so in "Golden Arm" there is nothing serious, so generally it is all sugar and sweat with a pinch of glitter in the very end kind of thing.

Generally as I said the result is very amusing. Nice camera work, cool actors, not bad music, tough people and a cute main character which evolves quickly over time. And that's it.

Killing nearly two hours - sure, bring it on. It is amusing, I give it that.

I wasn't expecting much from this film but I actually really enjoyed it and I had several laugh out moments. If you just want a light hearted fun film I highly recommend it.

The premise of Karate Kid combined with the underdog against the bully storyline of Over the Top.

It's an ok film. Funny at times. Strange at times.