United States - 1989
RCA/Columbia Pictures Home Video, 1991, VHS
Run Time - 1 hour, 37 minutes
The list of mostly forgettable science-fiction popcorn films produced by
Charles Band’s
Empire Pictures in the ‘80’s is for the most part an unchallenging intellectual vacuum. In many cases that is what makes them so mindlessly entertaining. With a naïve innocence that can only come from sincerity and a (relatively) low budget,
Arena is a shining example. It doesn’t require any mental acrobatics or ask any hard moral questions, but it was a little better made than most of the Empire Pictures catalog.
Arena is at some six years distance, clearly riding on the coat-tails of
Star Wars. It is not surprising then that in addition to its Empire pedigree,
Arena should suffer from many of the same philosophical shortcomings as its source material.
With nowhere else to go after losing his job on a space-station somewhere in the universe, Steve Armstrong (
Paul Satterfield) bunks with his former coworker Shorty in the slums. Here he meets a destitute bum, the last human champion of the Arena, an intergalactic boxing competition that has been dominated by aliens for the last five decades. He anoints Steve as the next human champion of the Arena making him quite literally the
Great White Hope in space.
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| The man in the Sloth suit is future director Steve Wang |
There are two categories of aliens that populate
Arena and highlight Steve’s messianic status. Both are visibly differentiated from the protagonists. The first are helpers, house-aliens who are silly and or dumb but totally harmless. To remove any ambiguity, the second group, Steve’s rivals, are not only visibly different but especially hideous, making them even more clearly unsympathetic and evil, and giving the good aliens excuse to support the collective restoration of a properly ordered hierarchy without appearing overtly
Uncle Tomish. Steve’s final opponent, the present champion Horn is also a cyborg. As such he is not only a direct threat to and reaffirmation of human physical purity, but a confirmation of the physical corruption and immorality of the non-human which has to “cheat” in order to win. And in fact, that’s precisely what Horn’s manager Rogor does when it becomes clear that Steve is going to beat his fighter.
Jade (
Sharri Shattuck) a sultry nightclub performer (Shattuck actually performs several of
Richard Band's songs) and Rogor’s lapdog is sent to seduce and poison Steve before the championship fight. Yet despite a romp through the futuristic spacy mylar sheets in Jade’s cat-box, her eroticism does not bode well for the normative settled family relationship. Instead, there is Quinn (
Claudia Christian,) a reserved, practical woman carrying on her father’s legacy as a boxing manager. It is with her faithful encouragement and training that Steve will restore hetero normative values to the universe. Can there be any doubt that our ubermensch will succeed in setting all of this straight when the distinction between right and wrong is so clear-cut?
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| The ultimate Buck? |
Despite all of this 50’s era conservative paranoia,
Arena is still enjoyable for a number of reasons. The practical special effects provided by
Screaming Mad George are better done than most of Band’s films.
Arena is also distinctly more working-class than its big budget franchise predecessor. Boxing, which is really all the Arena fights are, has always been viewed as a proletarian sport. Related to this is my final assertion that
Arena’s settings capture perfectly the appeal of the mundane. From the diner of the opening sequence, to the slums where Steve is verbally identified as the hero (it’s always been visually obvious), to the contest itself where order is restored,
Arena is fiction made tangible. Without throwaway details like burned eggs and garbage, it would be just another space movie. Narrative details that speak to perceived experience are what make good fiction. Unfortunately that’s why audiences rarely question such obviously reactionary symbolism when couched in throwaway sci-fi fluff.
The list of mostly forgettable science-fiction popcorn films produced by Charles Band’s Empire Pictures in the ‘80’s is for the most part an unchallenging intellectual vacuum. In many cases that is what makes them so mindlessly entertaining. With a naïve innocence that can only come from sincerity and a (relatively) low budget, Arena is a shining example. It doesn’t require any mental acrobatics or ask any hard moral questions, but it was a little better made than most of the Empire Pictures catalog. Arena is at some six years distance, clearly riding on the coat-tails of Star Wars. It is not surprising then that in addition to its Empire pedigree, Arena should suffer from many of the same philosophical shortcomings as its source material. 
When I think of dystopian near-future scenarios, Toronto is definitely one of the first places to cross my mind as the ideal setting. What major metropolitan area is more evocative of a sun-scorched and toxic post-apocalyptic environment than the largest city in Canada? I can already see what will happen… The rich white folks will hide underground and name their new exclusive community “Underworld”, leaving all the brown people on the surface to be ravaged by an epidemic martial arts plague which causes chronic competitions and terminal sparring. Subjected to repeated raids by these mud races, Underworld will evolve into a highly militarized society based on retro technology from the 70’s.
adult film. That story is far more interesting than the plot of this film, but I digress.
call out Chekhov’s Gun here, because Riker does use a few of these weapons on the spot while wearing tighty whities, but there’s plenty enough that don’t get used either, and none of it after this one scene.
DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT rent this movie, under any circumstances. This is the most horrible movie I‘ve ever seen. The plot stinks, the acting reeks, the sets suck. The whole thing seems like a porno movie with a wannabe premise. But there isn’t even any nudity! Ugggghhhhh this was so horrible. Gag gag gag.
In a squirt of not so subtle metaphoric genius, The baby's mother is named Mary (this probably should tell all of us hopelessly aberrant heteros that she will not be showing any skin in this film) and in a budget aphorism which simultaneously enhances the sciency part of this fiction, the baby is kept alive in a jar. Mary must transport the rubber rugrat 10 miles through the anarchic city to the ocean, where a legendary boat from Europe will come to pick it up and raise it to adulthood at which point something dramatic is going to happen. Just as Mary and and her two escorts are about to leave the secret base, a Rob Halford cyborg clad in a leather jacket studded with English steel bursts into the lab and starts enforcing homogenaety.
Ramming the rubber baby down in her backpack, Mary is the only one to escape alive and finds herself alone in the city. She quickly runs afoul of some of the crusty denizens of the ruins only to be saved at the last moment by Austin, a rugged but feminine featured macho warrior with a glistening well-groomed mane of Kenny G hair and well powdered face. Halford smashes up the happy encounter demanding that Austin stop living a lie.
Halford's throat open releasing a gout of strange white fluid, but this bizarre solution only helps the cyborg regenerate the wound. In a final confrontation, just as he himself is snuffed out, the ruthlessly tyrant Halford-borg rips off Austins arm. Weeping uncontrollably like an elderly Polish widow -in fear and a measure of relief- Austin clutches his bloody stump, discovering on close inspection that he too is a cyborg, a Red Blooded American Cyborg! Stitching Halfords own severed arm onto his own stump in posthumous tribute, Austin takes Mary the last few blocks to the ocean where she passes the rubber rugrat to some French guys in a rotting wooden dinghy who plop the sucker into a big maraschino cherry jar at the very last minute.
If this whole plotline sounds somehow familiar, you're not alone, just let the comedic effect sink in and enhance the experience. Above are some alternate covers for the American Cyborg story.
White and his cronies soon attach Carl’s carcass to a cyborg-body with the very same automatic homicidal defense reflex programming they’ve been giving the chimps, which wouldn’t be a problem except that White’s technique for hypothesis verification is perhaps somewhat too provocative.
Inexplicably weakening his resolve, Kirby uses the time honored neck-snapping-to-avoid-explicitness murder technique. Thankfully Norris doesn’t soften, he takes Alison like a stud, and retains all his rigidity, exerting total dominance over all things living and (hopefully, I’m begging!) dead in this film. Nevertheless it’s one of Chucks few movies featuring boobs, and a Chuck love scene. The completely pointless and unrelated lawless-biker-gang subplot on the other hand is strictly an excuse to slip in some of that real life karate power between predictable plot slivers since none of these people can actually take the guy singly.
I needed it, and I have little to hide at this point, anything I could get made me feel better. I’m not sorry if it made me seem shallow, cheap and disrespectful. Just like Chuck I started with the best of intentions and became a mass of twitching sweaty nerves. When he was in films for his ability to actually kick ass, it didn’t matter that the films were cheap, almost sci-fi-horror thrillers lacking follow through. It just didn’t matter.
The Super Inframan 
She demands control of all mankind, and the science squad has only one option, modernization! They turn their best man, Rayma into a superhero (China's first!), a cyborg superhero named Super Inframan. When the humans refuse her demands, Dragon Mom sends her mutants out one at a time to cause some environmental damage and get her message across, but each time Inframan shows up in his slick plastic spaceman outfit and handily defeat them. No matter how many of her lackeys are defeated, Dragon Mom merely reiterates her demands, eventually abducting a member of the innocent younger generation. A last-ditch desperate move by a simplistic, outdated social (system) monster in dire straights. I think you know what's going to happen next.
Inframan on the other hand, is a modern fellow, ostensibly capable of infinite upgrades, and always looking forward to the next. Such is China, a huge nation struggling to free itself from perceived (at home and abroad) primitivism, and pull itself into the forefront of the global market. The Super Inframan is China's future, a pragmatic, rigorous, dynamic, and exciting (not to mention bright Red!) future. I'm all for it. 
