Arena

An absolutely, astonishingly incompetent piece of work, Arena follows fire fighter David Lord (Kellan Lutz) as he’s kidnapped and forced to fight in a gladiatorial arena by a megalomaniacal businessman named Logan (Samuel L. Jackson) – with the ensuing battles broadcast over the internet for the amusement of, among others, dimwitted frat boys and Office Space-quoting Japanese businessmen. There’s little doubt that Arena establishes its pervasive ineptitude right from the get-go, as the movie opens with a laughably low-rent fight scene that’s rife with terrible special effects and needlessly ostentatious instances of style. (In terms of the former, though, the movie’s nadir is unquestionably a pivotal car crash that boasts some of the chintziest effects outside of a Roger Corman production.) From there, Arena becomes more and more unwatchable as it progresses – with the film’s stale premise utilized to hopelessly hackneyed effect by scripter Tony Giglio and director Jonah Loop. And as anticlimactic and unexciting as the movie’s action sequences are, it’s the frustratingly illogical behavior of the various characters that cements the film’s place as an utterly interminable endeavor. (The most obvious example of this is Jackson’s Logan, as the character is painted as a wildly flamboyant figure with absolutely no basis in reality – which, not surprisingly, severely diminishes his impact as an antagonist.) It’s ultimately difficult to recall a more objectionable straight-to-video actioner, with the movie’s complete and total lack of positive attributes sure to leave even the most open-minded of viewers shaking with irritation.

no stars out of ****