Review: DOA: Dead or Alive


Nefarious Eric Roberts invites fighters from all over the globe to his private island to compete in the title tournament (for a supposed $10M), though Roberts has ulterior motives. Jamie Pressly is a white trash wrestler, Aussie Holly Valance a British-accented thief, and Devon Aoki is a Japanese Princess who risks punishment by death when she walks out of the palace to enter the tournament so she can find out what happened to her brother who competed in the tournament previously. Sarah Carter plays the daughter of the tournament’s founder, while Kane Kosugi (son of the legendary Sho Kosugi) is the Princess’ sworn protector Hayabusa. Natassia Malthe meanwhile, is the lover of Aoki’s brother and vows to kill her for abandoning her people. Matthew Marsden is an acquaintance of Valance, and wrestler Kevin Nash is Pressly’s wrestler dad who starts to suspect (through comic misunderstanding) his daughter is a lesbian.



2006 Corey Yuen (the similarly gorgeous-looking female-geared martial arts flick “So Close”) directed adaptation of a video game I seriously need to play, pretty much is what it is: “Charlie’s Angels” meets “Enter the Dragon” meets “Mortal Kombat”. It’s dopey, vacuous, and really quite amusing (especially a rainy, wet fight between Valance and Carter) in a dopey, vacuous way. Instantly disposable but undeniably watchable…until the film focuses on Roberts’ truly stupid criminal schemes. In a film featuring hot martial arts chicks kicking arse and playing volleyball, who the fuck wants to see ugly Eric Roberts wearing goofy hi-tech glasses and doing some bumbling martial arts? It could’ve also been a little more overtly sexual (it is a film for 13-25 year-old guys, after all!). The performances are all kinda bad (though Pressly is actually well-cast), but former wrestler Nash gets some big laughs lampooning Hulk Hogan as Pressly’s muscle-head wrestler dad.



It’s a fast-paced B-movie, and an amazingly dopey one at that, but I think it knows it. And hey, for a computer game adaptation, it’s surprisingly watchable! Scripted by J.F. Lawton (“Pretty Woman” of all things, as well as “The Hunted” and “Under Siege”), Adam Gross and Seth Gross. It’s hot chicks beating each other up and playing volleyball for 90 minutes, that’s all. It is what it is, folks (a guilty pleasure), and it ain’t trying to be anything else. Yuen sure does bring out his bag of tricks to pretty it all up, at every given opportunity, though.



Rating: C+

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chil...
Read more

Review: Cinderella (1950)

The story of poor young Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods), treated as a servant by her nasty stepmother (voiced by Eleanor Audley), and dismissed by her thoroughly rotten, ugly stepsisters. Her only friends are a group of mice, who are forever being menaced by a cat named Lucifer (or as I call him, Grumpy Cheshire Cat). The King (hoping to find a wife for his charming son) is throwing a ball and every available young woman is invited to attend, and Cinderella is most excited to go. However, her stepmother and stepsisters do all they can to prevent this from happening. But with help from the mice and one fairy godmother (voiced by Verna Felton) later, and Cinderella looks set to attend the ball. You know the rest, folks.   Lovely 1950 Disney animated movie from directors Clyde Geronimi ( “Peter Pan” , “Lady and the Tramp” ), Wilfred Jackson ( “Fantasia” , “Alice in Wonderland” , “Peter Pan” ) & Hamilton Luske ( “Pinocchio” , “Fantasia” , “Peter Pan” ), that is a bit t...
Read more

Review: Jinnah

The story of Mohammed Ali Jinnah (Sir Christopher Lee) the politically moderate founder of Pakistan. A Muslim lawyer, Jinnah fought to form a separate nation from India for the Muslim minority, whilst Mahatma Gandhi (Sam Dastor) wished for India to stay united and proposed Jinnah as the new PM as a compromise. James Fox plays British viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Indira Varma plays Jinnah’s wife, and veteran bit player Vernon Dobtcheff plays a British dignitary.   Although Christopher Lee’s title performance received some critical notice and the actor himself was very proud of the work, this modestly budgeted 1998 biopic from director Jamil Dehlavi ( “Immaculate Conception” with Melissa Leo) and co-writer Farrukh Dhondy ( “Red Mercury” with Stockard Channing and Ron Silver) was largely ignored at the time and still very little-known today. Part of that is probably due to the poor marketing of the film, and difficulty in finding a distributor. It’s hard to get people to talk abo...
Read more