Release Date: June 15, 2007 Studio: Dimension Films MPAA Rating: PG-13 Genre: Action •
Adventure Director: Corey Yuen Writers: J.F. Lawton, Adam Gross, Seth Gross Cast: Devon Aoki, Jaime Pressly, Holly Valance, Sarah Carter, Natassia Malthe, Kane Kosugi, Matthew Marsden, Eric Roberts, Kevin Nash Synopsis: A number of fighters are invited to DOA, an invitational martial arts contest. They travel to the tournament island by plane, until they have to jump out mid-flight with parachutes, and then have until sundown to reach the main island to be entered into the tournament. Fighters are then pooled against one another in a knock-out style tournament, with the loser of a battle sent home, and the winner progressing to the subsequent round. The plot revolves around four female fighters who begin as rivals, but subsequently find themselves teaming up against another force. The Review: You're Critic for the Evening: Mikey.
Though the movie was completed and released in other countries nearly a year ago it's finally hitting theaters here in the U.S. It's hard to imagine a better title for a film that's spent so much time on a shelf collecting dust that has little to no ads campaigns going up against not only the current slate of summer releases but also the opening weekend of The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Dead on Arrival is not just a clever name.
I can recall picking up a demo disc of the very first DOA game, the Playstation had a full head of steam and the market was floated with Tekken and Virtua Fighter knock offs. But along came DOA that had had something the other games did not; Massive Bouncing Boobs. Seriously that was about it. The fighting and game engine was not that great, but you could even set the gravity options to give the "girls" bigger bounce. I wouldn't have thought this series would stick around, I guess you cannot count out that 15-35 horny male demo...ever.
I'm sure it was just that demographic that sold this game on the path to theaters, but something happened on the way to the Cineplex and what they are getting is something a few bra sizes short of their expectations.
Let's face it the facts, movies made from video games just haven't really been masterpieces. The studios and audiences don't take the genre seriously and Uwe Boll isn't exactly helping to change people's minds about it. For every decent film based on a video game there are about five that could make you shit a 3.2 GHz Cell processor.
Suprisingly DOA isn't that bad, oh sure it's a steaming pile of monkey vomit..but at least it doesn't even attempt to take itself seriously....and its got Devon Aoki. What the film lacks aside from an actual plot is some great action. It just doesn't have enough and the action that's there just doesn't really grab you. Perhaps it's because the fights are so silly and most the people in them don't have the fighting skills to make it believable. Too many pretty girls doing wire-fu just gets a little boring..who knew?
Overall: Just buy this sucker on DVD, save your money for having the power of pause, and zoom, and more importantly fast forward. Rating:
