Arena Wars is a sci fi love letter to those 80’s/90’s films that skillfully blended schlock and viscera and science fiction. This gore filled homage to a lot of those popular genre films, think The Running Man sans “Arnie,”or Wedlock, et al, is excellent. I wanted to get in my car and watch it. Arena Wars seriously felt like “Drive-in Cinema.” Brandon Slagle has managed to write a movie that has a truck load of nods and winks to what amounts to science fiction legacies.
In the future
Luke Bender is an innocent man in prison. (Again, like Arnold in the above mentioned film.) There is a game show; Arena Wars, that offers lifers or death row inmates a chance to be free. In the future, the public have become jaded. Arena Wars starts with high ratings. Unfortunately, the audience are losing their taste for televised bloodshed.
Bender is serving a sentence for a crime he did not commit. Sound familiar? *This is not an unusual theme. Go back far enough and it makes a number of “similar” storylines. The old line of “Accused of a crime he did not commit, Kwai Chang Caine is forced to leave his country…” This familiar plot device is a good one for putting bums on seats.
Bender serves “his” sentence after Admiral Jordan and his fiance are threatened.
The producers of the blood and gore filled Arena Wars decide to change things up. Putting a man they know is innocent into the game. The rules will apply to the former marine. The name of the game here is kill or be killed. The show monitors the entrants. They each receive a deadly implant and must survive 7 attacks, and kill the drugged up and lethal gladiators.
They enter sans weapons.
the cast
Michael Madsen is one of two hosts for Arena Wars, his cameo, a pretty hefty one, is a change of pace for him.
Eric Roberts Admiral Jordan. He has very little screen time
John Wells is Luke Bender, the Marine who leads a dwindling team out of the Arena Wars killing rooms.
Everyone here are bringing their “A” game to Arena Wars. It terms of casting, it was nice to see Robert LaSardo; a familiar face in this type of genre. He is a favourite of Mike’s Film Talk after he appeared in the 2008 Death Race “re-imagining.”
*Kudos to Kylie Fulmer as Billie. This is, apparently her first role and she nails it.”
Drive-in movie
Brandon Slagle co-wrote and directed Arena Wars. Michael and Sonny Mahal contributed to the story. Slagle has a long list of credits under his belt that have garnered a mixed bag of acceptance.
Like I said before, this film feels like those old drive-in movies. On family night, you could get a whole car load of folks in for a buck. There were plenty of movies on offer: the “big feature,” a cartoon, and a couple other films of diminishing quality. Arena Wars could have easily been the “big feature.”
The entire film has been put together very well considering that Michael Mahal is known for producing films with smaller budgets. The movie has a number of nods and winks at similar films.
Some character are two dimensional. Some are not. LaSardo always delivers. John Wells downplays his role and it works.
Violence
There is a lot of violence. Of course there is, after all any film with “wars” in the title is going to show some bloodletting and gore. The FX in Arena Wars are commendable. The fighting sequences, of which there are many, work very well. Stunt coordinator Allen Woodman does an excellent job here.
The film delivers. It is entertaining and of course we end up cheering the cons on. Slagle manages, with his script and direction, to make the prisoners human. Not some clichéd paper thin characters who appear in a lot of lower budget movies.
The sets work brilliantly for the story being told here. Kudos to those set designers who put this together.
In terms of the story, there is very little here that does not work. Ultimately Arena Wars performs very well.
I liked it.
The verdict
I gave this one a solid 4 star rating. It felt like a loving homage to all those 80’s and 90’s science fiction flicks. Of course Arena Wars did feel a lot like The Running Man, but that’s okay. The film had heart. The movie drops on June 25 this year. Check out the trailer and then check out the movie. Gravitas Ventures has done well.
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