Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
6/22/07
It's fitting that only a
single letter separates the words “CAMP” and “CRAP”: attempting to
delight an audience with intentional cheesiness is one of the hardest things
in movies. Out on this kind of ledge, film criticism is almost besides
the point: only you know what quickens your pulse and tickles your
funny bone. After a long, long time on the shelf, the Weinstein Company
has slipped the video game adaptation DOA: Dead or Alive,
a kind of Enter the Dragon filled with bikini-clad babes, into a
handful of theaters in what's probably some sort of tax scheme. Luckily,
one of them was in my neck of the woods, because this silly, cheeky film
delighted me to no end.
All over the world, elite
(or at least really peculiar) fighters receive invitations to a secluded
island to participate in a famed annual tournament called DOA (why this
is the case, I have no idea, since each fighter only needs to knock their
opponents unconscious to win). The event's original promoter has
died, leaving his daughter Helena (Sarah Carter) to prepare for her first
try as a contestant, while his ex-partner Donovan (Eric Roberts) runs the
event. The other fighters are a mixed lot. Famous wrestler
Tina Armstrong (Jaime Pressly) wants to prove that her skills are real,
while her father Bass (Kevin Nash) is just looking for a good fight.
Princess Kasumi (Devon Aoki) has defied tradition to search for her missing
brother (who vanished at last year's tournament), with bodyguard Hayabusa
(Kane Kosugi) and assassin Ayane (Natassia Malthe) in pursuit. Globe-trotting
thieves Christie (Holly Valance) and Max (Matthew Marsden) are looking
to clean out Donovan's vault. Once the tournament is under way, the
contestants pair off in wild matches, but Donovan's real plans have nothing
to do with crowning a winner. Can his right-hand techie Weatherby
(Steve Howey) help the girls stop his diabolical scheme?
On paper, DOA: Dead
or Alive's weaknesses are legion: dialog somewhere between banal
and bizarre (“No weapons are permitted; except, of course... the human
weapon”), incoherent staging (don't even try to follow the progress of
the tournament), characters who seem to come from other times or planets
(love the guy with the green triangular Mohawk), and a general surrealism
that makes it hard not to laugh out loud (watch the warriors who fight
Helena late in the game: she slices them with her sword only to have
them fall to the ground, uncut, moaning like someone just hit them over
the head with a rock). But a funny thing happened on the way to disaster:
DOA is staged with such relentlessly high spirits and game performances
that it not only proves immune to all these flaws: they somehow become
virtues. I'm pretty sure the movie knows exactly how hilariously
ridiculous it is, and plays it to the unashamed hilt. Lifting graphics
and plot points from its' video game source, the film offers us a secluded
island so ready for its' own martial arts tournament that it's got its'
own “Forbidden Square” patterned after China's Forbidden City. The
question is, forbidden to whom? And why? But why is not a question
you want to be asking in a movie that drops everything to have its' characters
pair off in a furious game of beach volleyball. And just like the
game (beach volleyball or DOA, I suppose), the movie has no issues with
parading its' very attractive cast about in as little clothing as PG-13
will allow. No complaints here: with the exception of Aoki,
who's a little wooden, the actresses are as fun as they are beautiful.
Pressly shows off the same white trash comic flair that's made her a star
on My Name is Earl, Valance oozes confident sexuality (she's be
great in an old-school James Bond movie), and Carter is spunky and sweet.
But the movie's greatest
asset is Roberts. Since his Oscar-nominated 1980's heyday, he's made
a career out of giving his absolute best to all kinds of roles in all kinds
of direct-to-video action flicks. As Donovan, he both embraces and
mocks that tradition, slithering about the screen in his 80's Sam Elliott
hairdo and delivering every line as though it secretly ends with the words
“...and loving it!” I smiled and laughed pretty much every moment
he was on-screen. Meanwhile, Marsden and Howey also do their share,
making fun comic relief boyfriends.
Legendary martial arts choreographer
Corey Yuen directs, and he keeps the action fast and spirited, even if
he doesn't have the budget to make it quite as elaborate as we might expect
from him. The climactic showdown involving ladders, chains and a
self-destruct mechanism is pretty nifty. The actors all seem comfortable
kicking butt and manage to inhabit a really strange group of characters
as though they were the most normal people in the world.
A big reason to believe that
the movie is in on its' own joke lies in the screenplay credit: J.F.
Lawton may be most famous for his great Pretty Woman and Under
Siege screenplays, but in an earlier life under the pseudonym J.D.
Athens, he specialized in gonzo, genre-blending comedies like the fun Cannibal
Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death and the less successful but certainly
bold Pizza Man (Bill Maher as a hard-boiled pizza delivery man who
runs afoul of a plot masterminded by infamous 80's policos like Dan Quayle
and Michael Dukakis). Lawton also created the agreeably cheeky 90's
Pamela Anderson TV series VIP, and the same silly/sincere T&A
adventure vibe run through DOA.
By any conventional measure,
DOA: Dead or Alive is a bungled mess. But it's an absolutely
delightful mess, filled with fun characters and a constant winking love
of the kind of junk it is. I can't defend it in any way except to
say that I loved it, and that none of this Summer's big-budget second sequels
has put anywhere near as big a smile on my face. It's dumb, it's
incoherent, and it's laughing with you. Fans of this kind of thing,
You Know Who You Are. |
