I Wish I Could Fight On A Boat

When I first heard that they were making a movie version of Dead or Alive, I rolled my eyes. Can't Hollywood just leave my games alone? Go think up your own stuff and quit ruining my games! But then again, a bunch of scantily clad girls jumping around and kicking butt? OK, I guess I can see the appeal of making that for the big(ger) screen. So I knew that it would suck but those are the breaks...Video games and movies just do not mix. Whether it's Super Mario Bros., BloodRayne or just a movie where characters play video games (i.e. Stay Alive) it just doesn't seem to work very well. And now, despite everything everyone else has said and despite my own misgivings, I have a confession to make:

This movie is not bad. I like this movie. And no, I don't mean this movie:

I do indeed mean this one:

This is the way game-to-movie translations should be done: know your material and never take yourself more serious than that. The material: people that fight go to tournaments where they fight. Period. Now I will admit that the last 15 minutes are wrapped up in some crazy scheme where you think they may just pull off the bad guy's mask and hear him exclaim "I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids!", Helena is not French but come sort of bubbly rollerblader and Devon Aoki scares me. Other than those things, DOA never strives beyond it's abilities and that makes this movie entertaining...to me anyway. I have to say that I was surprised to read reviews of how "boobtastic" this movie is...um, am I the only one to see that virtually none of these women have any kind of boobs to speak of? I mean, any true fans of the game (and by game I mean boobs) can see that compared with DOA 4 and DOA X2's extreme boob physics, this movie really took the tame approach. Yes, the girls are scantily clad, yes one of them does an entire fight scene in nothing but a towel and yes, there is an all-girl fight in the rain...but even with that, you see that in any movie these days and it's interesting what a tame approach they took. Even the obligatory volley ball scene is short and sweet and since these actresses aren't all that well endowed, it's not even a big deal. Funny thing is, I think I'm the only one who sees that.

Ah well, I liked the fights scenes, I like the sense of humor it had about itself (let's face it, DOA is no Oscar contender and it never pretends to be otherwise) and other than the three things listed above, I enjoyed this movie. It's short, it's fun and it's DOA. To each his own I suppose...If you'd like to read other reviews, just take the above sentence and say aloud the exact opposite. That's ok, I perfectly comfortable all alone in my I-Like-DOA-The-Movie-And-I'm-Proud camp...