Have you seen Death Race? How about Death Race 2, Gamer, Never Back Down or Never Back Down 2? If you answered yes to any of these questions then you have pretty much already have seen Arena. I only say pretty much, as opposed to just already seen because of the presence of Samuel L. Jackson. As an avid Samuel Jackson fan I realize that saying he makes the movie worth watching even if you have seen one of the aforementioned movies is biased, but I think even those that aren’t such big Jackson fans would find this movie entertaining.
The movie is best described as a mash up of the previously mentioned movies. It takes the “win this race for your freedom” aspect of the Death Race movies and simply transposes it to “win 10 fights for your freedom.” In both cases the main characters are also aware that they would likely be killed even if they did fulfill the requirement for freedom. The movie also borrows the “people will pay to watch a no holds bar illegal underground fighting tournament online” from the Never Back Down movies and changes the “no holds bar” part to “fight to the death” and does away with the tournament style. The final recipe of this mash up is the villain overlord running the matches as is the case in Gamer. This part is less of a reformation of an idea as it is simply changing the villain from being played by Michael C. Hall from Gamer to for Samuel L. Jackson for this movie. Before anyone jumps on me I realize that the kid running the fights in the Never Back Down movies isn’t the nicest person or that the Warden in the Death Race movies can be considered a villain. It’s not in the same way that Hall and Jackson are portrayed. Their characters fall into more of the blatant villain category as opposed to the subtle villain one.
The main character of David Lord is played by Kellen Lutz of Twilight fame. As I’m sure you could have guessed, Mr. Lord ends up being an unwilling fighter in the Arena. Thankfully he’s not forced to deliver the killing blow to his first opponent. That where Logan’s (Samuel L. Jackson) right hand man Kaden (Johnny Messner) comes in to finish the job; but not before being embarrassed by Lord. This little embarrassment sets the stage for the feud between these two characters to grow resulting in the final matchup between Lord and Kaden. Oh by the way those aren’t their stage names, or fighting names rather. They have much more clever fighting names which I won’t spoil for you. As Lord continues to fight his way to freedom he becomes close to Logan’s right hand girl Milia (Katia Winter). She’s the same woman that recruited him to fight. By “becomes close to” I mean bangs out multiple times and by “recruited” I mean tricked.
The bulk of this movie is rinse and repeat. Lord takes on a previously undefeated fighter in a green screen fighting room. A guy at work in an Asian country watches on his computer, a bunch of frat guys and their girls watch the fight on their computer, Lord almost dies in the fight but wins, Kaden’s hatred for Lord grows, Milia takes care of him and the FBI move a little bit closer to catching Logan. That same situation is repeated literally four or five times. Although the fights are entertaining, Milia (who is pretty good looking in my opinion) is usually scantily clad, and Samuel L. Jackson aka Logan is a complete gangster, it would have been nice to see some more variety during this portion of the movie.
A few quick points I want to make concerning the acting. Lutz is certainly physically built for the role and does a pretty decent job both in and out of the fighting scenes. That doesn’t mean I don’t think any in shape actor couldn’t have done an equally good job, but he certainly didn’t phone it in for a movie that I’m going to say most people won’t end up seeing. This looks like its one of Katia Winter’s first feature films and she also does a nice job. Granted most of her character’s job is to fall for Lutz’s character but still I can see her rising in the ranks of Hollywood. Not to the A list level but certainly up there. Messner seems like he has the most acting experience besides my man Jackson, yet I felt he tried too hard in his part making his character almost funny to me at times when he was trying to be the exact opposite.
You notice how I’ve started a whole new paragraph for Samuel L. Jackson. Don’t worry I definitely don’t have a paragraph worth to write, but I wanted to make sure you take notice of my Jackson Theory. That theory says that every movie Jackson has been in (which is a ton) is simply a different part of his life. He was trying out gangster for a while in Pulp Fiction, and then decided to retire to a farm and chain a white bitch to his radiator in Black Snake Moan. He was then sucked into a galaxy far far away, but soon returned to his own planet. Once back he decided to try law enforcement but after the whole Snakes on a Plane episode he was recruited for some super secret agency. We all know law enforcement doesn’t always pay so well so he starts this whole fighting ring. Yes I know I didn’t go into every movie and I can but that’s for another post. My point is Samuel never dies. Your probably saying I saw the man get eaten by a giant fucking shark in Deep Blue Sea. My answer to that is Samuel was simply tired and didn’t want to climb up all those ladders and didn’t want to kill all the sharks by himself. LL Cool J is a big tough guy let him do some work. So he simply let himself get attacked by the shark, once pulled back into the water he tore the shark in half with his bear hands, took one of its teeth and its sinew and stitched himself back up and headed for the nearest beach for spring break. Thus, the trend continues in this movie and Jackson escapes setting up a sequel which if he were in it I would obviously watch.
That being said, as much as this movie has essentially been done before I’d say its worth checking out if you’re in the mood for a substance-less action movie. Lets face it the newer Death Race movies, or Never Back Down movies aren’t at the top of most peoples’ lists to watch. They certainly aren’t on mine, but when I find them on I tend to have no problem with it. They’re the type of movie you can watch without really watching. You know, only pay attention during the fighting parts.
Rating: A duckbilled platypus of the mindless fight/race for your freedom/life movie plot (5/10)
P.S. If you get the duckbilled platypus reference comment below so I can send you your choice of monument of cookie.
Trailer Below:
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