Arena is a crappy, low budget B movie...but it's one of the best crappy low budget B movies ever made. Actually, it's what passes for a big budget Hollywood blockbuster, in terms of B movies.
The saving grace of the film is the quality of the special effects that go into creating some of the alien species in the film, they're actually pretty darn impressive. Of course, it's sometimes hard to be impressed with the film, such as even though the special effects are cool, the costumes the characters wear look like cheesy leftovers from the wardrobe of "Space Mutiny".
The main character is an unlikeable, one dimensional, somewhat confusing, and laughable muscle hunk. However...he's not AS unlikeable or laughable as most other B movie leading men, such as the many incarnations of Reb Brown. It tend to ads to the fun though, that you don't really like this character, and you actually would like to see a hairy alien kick his head in.
Similarly the acting and plot are definitely mediocre. However, being just mediocre is a huge step up from some of the B movie cousins of this film.
If you were to grade the film on a "normal movie" scale, i suppose it would only be a 3 or a 4. However, it's like the Special Olympics here, you cant really class it with normal films as it's quite obviously B movie cheese. And as far as B movies go, I'd give it a 7.
The saving grace of the film is the quality of the special effects that go into creating some of the alien species in the film, they're actually pretty darn impressive. Of course, it's sometimes hard to be impressed with the film, such as even though the special effects are cool, the costumes the characters wear look like cheesy leftovers from the wardrobe of "Space Mutiny".
The main character is an unlikeable, one dimensional, somewhat confusing, and laughable muscle hunk. However...he's not AS unlikeable or laughable as most other B movie leading men, such as the many incarnations of Reb Brown. It tend to ads to the fun though, that you don't really like this character, and you actually would like to see a hairy alien kick his head in.
Similarly the acting and plot are definitely mediocre. However, being just mediocre is a huge step up from some of the B movie cousins of this film.
If you were to grade the film on a "normal movie" scale, i suppose it would only be a 3 or a 4. However, it's like the Special Olympics here, you cant really class it with normal films as it's quite obviously B movie cheese. And as far as B movies go, I'd give it a 7.