Arena

If you're craving a lot gladiatorial gore with a side order of nude babes, this one suits those baser parts of your nature. Samuel L. Jackson overacts as the villain (not nearly so amusingly evil as in The Kingsmen) to offset the degree to which Kellan Lutz underplays his heroics. The plot is pure paint-by-numbers.

And now for the exception. At about 25 minutes, there's a quick, flawlessly executed Easter egg nod to a much better film, Office Space. Fans of that one will love that brief flash of wit that's nowhere to be found in the rest of the script.

Well, you've seen it all before, it's not a new concept but it's still pretty interesting. I sat through the whole movie without any problems at all. Sure, some things were pretty stupid like that an infamous mass murderer wouldn't have more security or that you cannot possibly survive the amount beating the main character receives.

I liked the movie but unfortunately it was too average. The acting is nothing to complain about but the characters are pretty boring. Samuel L. Jackson gives us a typical villain and Kellan Lutz gives us the usual hero, nothing special on that front.

I liked Daniel Dae Kim's character but he had a too small a role. It had every better if they had developed his character more then I would care a lot more about the people who died. There are lots of people who die but I did not think I really cared it was unfortunate and something that they could have worked more with.

This is by no means comparable to Hunger Games/BR, but give it a shot if you just want some pretty OK entertainment.

While I agree with the highly negative reviews already posted, I didn't find it *quite* as offensively bad as they did. Sure, the fight choreography was poor, at times, but it wasn't nearly as bad as Amsterdam Heavy. The acting wasn't much better, but it was still about par for the genre. I guess this is place where I'm supposed to express incredulity over Sam Jackson appearing in this movie, but, really, everyone who watches lots of low budget, direct-to-video movies knows that he'll appear in anything. He's done some really mediocre (and even bad) movies, in the past.

Anyways, the main plot consists of a James Bond villain (Sam Jackson) kidnapping people and forcing them into fighting to the death. That's it. Nothing else. No pretenses to art here. Now, if the fight choreography and stunts were good, I might able to suggest this to fans of direct-to-video B movies inspired by Enter the Dragon and Bloodsport. Unfortunately, they're really not very well done, with some of them looking downright crappy and unimpressive. Some others, however, end up looking pretty decent, though nowhere near Enter The Dragon or Bloodsport. The direction focuses on stylized, bloody violence, with fast cuts, slow motion, and lots of posing. If Michael Bay drives you nuts, I doubt you'll like this much, either.

There's a rather surprising amount of gratuitous exploitation in this movie. If you're prudish at all, I'd warn you to avoid it. There's constant, gory violence and occasional full frontal nudity (female only), making this one of the most overt, unapologetic, and cynical attempts at making a mainstream action movie that I've seen recently. I guess they're saying that if the nudity doesn't get you off, the violence will, like we're all a bunch over-stimulated sociopaths. There's a satirical element to all this gratuitous exploitation, but I think it was inserted merely to deflect criticism.

If you're looking for exploitation, there's plenty of that. Otherwise, I'd say you're best off skipping it. The action scenes aren't good enough. Some people have criticized this as being pornographic, and I have to agree; the violence seems to be almost fetishized. However, amoral as I am, I find the lack of plot and poor fight choreography to be the true problems with this movie.

Kind of "Saw" series movies, but much more easier to predict the next step. I'm astonished that Sam L.J. has decided to be a part of this movie and I'm really curious if this has payed him off at all :) As mentioned in the plot line itself.. it is brutal movie, but I still can see much more blood and pain into "Spartacus, God of Arena" than in this movie. If you want to loose 87mins when waiting for train or something like that, then this could be a good choice. I never have given so far a review of a film in any forum, but people, please, don't loose your time into watching this unless you're really bored. Basically I would say that the only kind of theatrical performance here is to Nina Dobrev, but rest is just much below of average of what those kind of actors are capable of

"What's the one thing we all have in common?...Death." After a tragic accident leaves his wife dead, David (Lutz) is picked to take part in a "game". This game involves two men fighting to the death. When David agrees to do it in exchange for his freedom, the creator (Jackson) has other plans. My theory of movies lately are that there are no original ideas anymore. Recently it seems like it's either a remake, sequel, comic book or a rehash of a movie that has been done. Counting this movie, 13 and Freerunner there are now 4 movies released recently that steal from "Death Race". While I did see the others first it may have skewed my judgment but this was much slower then I was expecting. The plot is...take a guy with no family, force him to fight and kill for his freedom while the evil creator watches. Very predictable and is really only worth watching for the fighting and nudity. On the other hand, why else would you watch this anyway? Overall, not a bad movie, but the plot is starting to get old and over used. That makes it lose the excitement and impact. Because of un-originality I give it a B-.

Would I watch again? - Not this one...but again I'm sure next month another version will come out.

*Also try - Gamer & Death Race 1 & 2