Arena da Morte

Roger Corman has an unusual reputation. He has produced or directed a large number of "cheapie" movies--including this one, which was shot in Russia(per the DVD commentary, even the interior shots were done on soundstages in St. Petersberg).

Sometimes, one just doesn't feel like some sort of heavy-duty, call-to-action movie--say, like "Spartactus"(1963). On the other hand, if you feel like being entertained, "Arena"(2001), is likely to "hit the spot" very nicely. Just like a lot of Roger Corman's films.

The fact of the matter is that, surprisingly, the screenplay is well-crafted and not as goofy as you might think. The Romans did try to implement their customs wherever they conquered--including the contests of the gladiators as they were being performed in the Great Coliseum in Rome. And there was even a disastrous attempt to perform them in Greece(the Greeks rioted because of the carnage). Female gladiators--while unusual--were not unknown and some of them even appeared in "Gladiator" with Russell Crowe. A wooden, scaled-down clone of The Great Coliseum in Rome is not only possible, it is likely that there were hundreds of them in the forested frontier regions of the Empire.

A nice, fun movie for an evening's entertainment.

But you could say the same thing about other movies from Roger Corman, notably "The Undead"(1957) and "The Dunwich Horror"(1969). Incidentally, many of today's movies are just that--entertainment--and, IMO, no apologies are necessary.

Movies with "a message" are not--and should not be--the only alternative.

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!

Right off the bat, you'd think that two former playmates playing gladiators would be just about as campy as The Bare Wench Project or something similar, meant solely to show as much T & A as possible. That it was not (although it was not without it). I would say the violence in the movie far outweighed the T & A (again, why cast playmates if there wasn't going to be at least some).

My second misconception was that when these ladies would eventually do battle, it would be too "girlie" or fake, like you could tell the actresses didn't want to break a nail for the sake of the movie. This was very much unlike the "gang fight" in Savage Roses AKA Locas 4 Life, where you could tell every kick was pulled and was probably the first time the actress had even attempted to kick someone. Anyways, I never would have believed that Karen McDougal and Lisa Dergan would have been able to handle a sword believably. I'm sure they were just props, so as to make them lighter and easier to handle, but that's the point right? To make everything as believable as possible.

With that being said, and knowing that I thought it was worth a watch, the one thing that bugged me was the voice acting. Apparently this movie was filmed in Russia, and probably used many Russian actors, but the voices spoken were perfect English. This resulted in the old Kung Fu movie look where hearing the words didn't match up with watching the lips saying the words. However, if you're a lip reader, you can tell they were saying the same thing. This confused me a bit but I got over it.

I also didn't know they had nail salons in ancient Rome, or wherever they were, but now I'm nitpicking. Overall, I'd recommend viewing this movie at least once. I was surprised that it was better than the 2.9 most IMDb voters chose to rate it (at the time this was wrote). MUCH better than the 2.9, in fact, I gave it a 7.

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.