{"id":44203,"date":"2024-06-13T02:49:33","date_gmt":"2024-06-13T06:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=44203"},"modified":"2024-06-13T02:57:51","modified_gmt":"2024-06-13T06:57:51","slug":"arena-wars-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/13\/arena-wars-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Arena Wars (2024)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Available on VOD June 25th<\/sup> from Gravitas Ventures.<\/strong><\/p>\n

While Edgar Wright and Glen Powell are currently in the process of crafting their remake of \u201cRunning Man,\u201d Brandon Slagle jumps to the front of the line to get his hits in first. \u201cArena Wars\u201d looks great and has a classic idea from the Stephen King novel. In fact, it\u2019s pretty much just a small budget remake of the classic film with convicts, and a game show and psychos, etc. The problem with \u201cArena Wars\u201d is that is it pretty much a ton of filler with only some semblance of narrative in sparse moments. If \u201cArena Wars\u201d were a bag of chips it\u2019d only have a small hand full of chips and a ton of smelly air puffing it up.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the year 2045, convicted criminals are given a unique opportunity: they can compete in the world\u2019s number one televised sporting event: Arena Wars. The stakes are high\u2014they must survive seven rooms and face seven of the most vicious killers in the country. If they emerge victorious, they regain their freedom. It\u2019s a deadly battle for survival, where every move counts.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cArena Wars\u201d is about ninety minutes and does nothing but drag its feet to give us actual progression in the narrative. Whether it\u2019s the small budget, or lack of interesting screenplay, Brandon Slagle brings us through so much just to get to the point. He sets up huge exposition dumps, and discusses the perimeters of the game show, and then even sets up a group of characters to go through this gauntlet. Then he turns around and announces \u201cWait, those were just cannon fodder, now for the actual main characters!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It feels like such a cheap way to pad the run time by building up to nothing only to give us new characters mid-way. As for the rest of the production, the budget is noticeable as Slagle re-uses a lot of sets and stock footage throughout the film\u2019s run time. As well, as per what I\u2019m assuming is some kind of blood oath you\u2019re supposed to take as an indie filmmaker, Michael Madsen and Eric Roberts do make brief appearances. \u201cArena Wars\u201d spends too much time with empty nonsense that it could have taken that time to deliver interesting social commentary.<\/p>\n

Maybe like the state of television? Exploitation? The dehumanization of criminals? The dehumanization of reality TV? All of this is virtually nowhere to be seen, in favor of goofy back and forth dialogue that often sounds as if its aping Shane Black. Director Slagle is on to something with \u201cArena Wars\u201d but he never follows through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Available on VOD June 25th from Gravitas Ventures. While Edgar Wright and Glen Powell are currently in the process of crafting their remake of \u201cRunning Man,\u201d Brandon Slagle jumps to the front of the line to get his hits in first. \u201cArena Wars\u201d looks great and has a classic idea from the Stephen King novel. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[58,501,906,1012,1087],"class_list":["post-44203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-action","tag-indie-film","tag-science-fiction","tag-survival","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44203"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44207,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44203\/revisions\/44207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}