The Arena

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'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.

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.

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

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.