Arena da Morte

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

Of course Roger Corman was going to cash in on the success of "Gladiator" by having one of his films from the 70's remade. Probably not as good as the original since I have not seen it but this still is entertaining junk. Playboy playmates are cast and of course they are kidnapped, raped, forced to train, and then of course to fight as female gladiators. Here's your chance to see female gladiators with very noticeable breast implants. The film is made with a serious tone and mood and definitely not tongue in cheek. Entertaining exploitation that was actually filmed in Russia.

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 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.

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.