DOA: Dead Or Alive DVD Review

I suppose that while a faithful adaptation of a novel surely requires fine actors to accurately portray the characters as well as a decent adaptation of the text in screenplay form, when considering a faithful adaptation these things wouldn’t be necessary. Video games used to just be games, but now they have progressed to having storylines with digital characters narrating and progressing the gaming action. Usually the scripts and the voiceover on these games are quite bad, melodramatic and uneven, but that isn’t why you play and it is forgiven. In a film when there are no interactive elements to entertain the audience in-between the bad storyline and acting, there must be something else to replace it instead. D.O.A attempts to fill the holes with high intensity action, something which has been the only saving grace of past video game adaptations.

Even in the film’s best attempt at getting a celebrity in the film backfires somewhat. Jaime Pressly is a decent enough actress playing certain roles and she does a great job of looking the part in this film as an American wrestler, but each of her fight sequences are so awkwardly shot in order to cover up her inadequacies in martial arts that it becomes somewhat uncomfortable. This is not good considering the film is already uncomfortable during all of the other lead, Devon Aoki’s dialogue scenes as a ninja princess. She is stiff and awkward in all sorts of other ways more traditional to video game films. The next inclusion in the international group of fighters is a British seductress and thief. There is all sorts of suggested nudity to make teenage guys fantasize, but like the video games they watch the nudity is digitally monitored in the fight scenes and nothing is showing.

All of these characters and many more are invited to a fighting competition on an island. There is a hefty sum of money that everyone is chasing. They arrive and are given bracelets which will flash the face of the person they are supposed to fight, which could happen anywhere and at any time. They all live together on the island with the sole purpose of fighting until only one remains, but some of the fighters have other reasons for being there. A ninja princess believes that her brother was killed by foul play at the game, so she is determined to find out what happened to him. There is also a thief trying to steal the reward money, but all of this is already known by the host of the fights. He has surveillance on all of them and when they realize he has evil intentions for the game, they band together to fight back.

The visuals are so flashy and exciting looking that it is a shame more could not be done. The story along with performances, dialogue, and even most of the choreography is bland and quickly forgettable. Some of the fighting looks incredible, but never seems able to follow through an entire battle. Before long it becomes dull, focusing on editing making the fight look believable rather than any real talent. Action movies should be more than this, and video game films should stay on the shelf until they start getting better. The DVD has a featurette about the action in the film, which shows the tricks behind making the action look even better than it really was. There is also a theatrical trailer.