ARENA (1989)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*                                                                                                                                                     If I did not know from interviews that the writers of this project, Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo, were both stone SF-fans, I might think that ARENA had been written as a mundane boxing yarn, in which the characters' urban environment was taken for granted and needed no explanation. That's how little Bilson and DeMeo tell audiences about the background of the space-station on which all of the film's action takes place. I've seen or read hundreds of sketchy space-opera stories in which Earthpeople of some far-future era gambol about a space-opera cosmos, interacting with a plethora of other, usually-intelligent ETs. But I'm not sure I've encountered any space-opera as sketchy as ARENA.                                                               

 

All the viewer knows about protagonist Steve Armstrong (Paul Satterfield) is that though he has formidable boxing-skills, he's ended up working as a short order cook on the space station with his buddy Shorty (Hamilton Camp), an ET with four (not very believable) arms. A rowdy alien gets in Steve's face, possibly because humans of this era have low status, and Steve punches the alien out, which gets him and Shorty fired. However, the defeated ET was the prize fighter in the very limited stable of fight-manager Quinn (Claudia Christian). Two of her buddies show up at Shorty's domicile to attack Steve, and after a grueling fight, he beats them both. It's not clear that Quinn expressly told her employees to go beat up Steve to find out how good a fighter he was, but after he wins, Quinn just happens to be on hand to offer Steve a contract. He initially refuses but Shorty gets Steve in financial trouble with local fight-fixer Rogor (Marc Alaimo), so inevitably Steve joins Quinn's retinue.                                     

As in every other formulaic boxing-film, Steve starts moving up in the ranks, beating every other fighter he encounters. There's a marginal subplot about how no human has won in the arena-fights for some really long time, which may have something to do with Rogor fixing all the fights. Since Rogor can't bring Steve under his control, he sends his sexy accomplice Jade (Shari Shattuck) to seduce and then poison Steve, so that Steve can't win the match against the ugly ET champion. For no clear reason, Steve just throws off the poisoning, shows up at the match, and promptly trounces his opponent, making the universe safe-- for human boxers, I guess.       

 Considering how undercooked the ARENA script is, the movie's production values are pretty good, and director Peter Manooghian (who directed two other films that are, like one, connected to the Charles Band-iverse) keeps things lively. Satterfield carries most of the movie with his fight-scenes, though I don't know how much he was doubled. But no one watches this sort of thing for good dramatic acting. Curiously, the script is so laser-focused on giving Steve his big triumph that there's no romantic subplot between the fighter and his manager. Usually, in these sorts of films, the hero's "true love," the female professional, is good-looking but not as captivating as the evil temptress. But this time, actresses Christian and Shattuck look equally glamorous. There's only a sidelong glance or two to suggest that Quinn might be jealous of Jade's incursions, until the end-scene, where the former punches out the latter-- which is my only reason for giving this movie a "fighting femme" tag.