ARENA WARS Review: Perfunctory Action Schlock & Awe
Arena Wars opens in North America on June 25 from Gravitas Ventures. It’s admirable that there are still directors out there keen on committing themselves to action cinema nostalgia. As always though, it’s a crapshoot each time and particularly when it comes to the dystopian death game genre. To that end, there are plenty of examples with tons of positives to pull from depending on your tastes. Films like The Running Man, the Battle Royale movies, The Hunger Games films, the Jason Statham-led Death Race, and even The Hunt are all terrific cases in point. Suffice it to say, there are others that fare even less. Dallas Jackson’s more grounded The System is probably the best title in this category I’ve seen as recently as last year, and that’s coming off of covering the gravely subpar U.K. indie, Exiled: The Chosen Ones. Although Brandon Slagle’s Arena Wars fares a wee […]