Movie Reviews: Dead or Alive

Cross posted at The Church of Awesomeness:

A movie that should be reserved for the completely inebriated and severely retarded; Dead or Alive stays true to its vague critic reference from View London: "The best movie adaption of a video game so far!" Well not really...

DOA is what the offspring of "Enter the Dragon," "Mortal Kombat," and any arbitrary episode of "The Three Stooges" would have been like if it had been given a Latte enema. The characters are ridiculous: Kasumi is a ninja princess, somehow... whose love interest is an extremely emasculated rendition of Ryu Hayabusa the super ninja of Tecmo fame; Ayane appears less Asian than the girl who plays Christie (a theoretically English girl); the Chinese characters Lei Fang and Jann Lee are disposed of quickly and stereotypically; and the general tone of the film is reminiscent of a feminist exploitation flick on steroids so powerful they are still considered "unclassifiable" to the likes of Barry Bonds. This production is a joke, as the cheap-ass CGI stands testament to.

But the truly oxymoronic bent lies in the moral of this fucked up fable... Not what the director meant to convey, but that which is important to savage bigamists like myself. A lesson that some thoughtfully articulated choreography, delightfully symmetrical women, and an eclectic collection of martial artists will always make me harder than Chinese algebra.

Given these circumstances, I give this movie a C+.