Best movie of this year hands down!

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

All bets are off at a corrupt intergalactic fighting competition where a system removes the fighter's advantage, no matter what species and puts them on an even standing. Made and released in the UK in 1989, like Robot Jox, Crash & Burn, Oblivion and other Charles Band productions the lack of money is obvious but this B-film captures the imagination which many larger budgeted films fail to do. Arena taps into a time when fighting films had peaked and Rocky was deep rooted in the conciseness along with WWF specials. Director Peter Manoogian offers plenty of showdowns. His direction is fine and many of the makeup and special effects still hold up. In a cast of outlandish aliens Claudia Christian features as Quinn and the Christopher Reeve-a-like Paul Satterfield's Steve Armstrong works as the stereotype hero.Despite its clichés and the fact it was never going to win any Oscars its many references to other science fictions and fresh concept makes it an enjoyable low budget science fiction.

Arena is a crappy, low budget B movie...but it's one of the best crappy low budget B movies ever made. Actually, it's what passes for a big budget Hollywood blockbuster, in terms of B movies.The saving grace of the film is the quality of the special effects that go into creating some of the alien species in the film, they're actually pretty darn impressive. Of course, it's sometimes hard to be impressed with the film, such as even though the special effects are cool, the costumes the characters wear look like cheesy leftovers from the wardrobe of "Space Mutiny".The main character is an unlikeable, one dimensional, somewhat confusing, and laughable muscle hunk. However...he's not AS unlikeable or laughable as most other B movie leading men, such as the many incarnations of Reb Brown. It tend to ads to the fun though, that you don't really like this character, and you actually would like to see a hairy alien kick his head in.Similarly the acting and plot are definitely mediocre. However, being just mediocre is a huge step up from some of the B movie cousins of this film.If you were to grade the film on a "normal movie" scale, i suppose it would only be a 3 or a 4. However, it's like the Special Olympics here, you cant really class it with normal films as it's quite obviously B movie cheese. And as far as B movies go, I'd give it a 7.

Overall, a highly enjoyable and truly wonderful film. Yes, the effects are shabby, the acting stilted, the story disjointed, but this film does something quite rare, it transports you into a world where these things don't matter. It's a world that is truly believable in the way that modern sci-fi flicks simply are not (I use the recent Star Wars outing as my authority). In the same way that the cantina scene from the original star wars film caught the imagination, this movie does the same. You get a glimpse into a strange and weird world where men in leotards wrestle with giant slugs with a dwarf with four arms as your best friend. Truly unique and amazing fun.

No, this is not a great movie, and yes it has it's share of problems. I'm not really even sure why I like this film, but I do. I admit that it can be pretty bad at times and extremely cheesy at others, but it still kept me entertained for an hour and half.The story is actually a fairly interesting one, nothing terribly original, but nonetheless interesting. This film is basically just "Rocky" and "Star Wars" thrown together.The acting was nothing to get excited about in the film, but it wasn't all that bad either. There were a few times that were pretty badly done, but overall the acting was just fine. I've got to say something though, Paul Satterfield has an uncanny resemblance to Christopher Reeve and sounds like him too. The entire cast are virtually unknown to me, but there were some familiar faces in the film (still couldn't name them or place where I'd seen them though).The special effects were relatively decent given that I'm sure the budget was REALLY low. The make-up effects were sometimes really good and other times just horrible. Some of the aliens were actually quite well done and pretty cool looking. The outfits and wardrobe of the film was pretty good for the most part, except that stupid fighting uniform thing that Steve Armstrong (Paul Satterfield) wore when in the arena, that needed to go.All in all, I thought this was an ok film. Far from great, but I've seen worse. I definitely wouldn't recommend this to anyone. I would only recommend this film to people that like cheesy sci-fi films. If the words "cheesy" and "sci-fi" don't spark your interest, then go watch something else. In the event that you do see the film, I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for reading,-Chris