DOA: Dead or Alive Review

By Lee Arcuri

Dead or Alive brilliantly captures the subtle nuances of a video game, such as having two-dimensional characters, and containing only the bare minimum of an intelligible plot. The video game prominently features women with bodacious Ta-Ta’s, and in this regard, the film adaptation is a success. But only if your criteria for success are bodacious Ta-Ta’s.

Let me just tell you something about this movie. It didn’t even make half a million bucks in theaters. Less than $500,000 in the U.S. Look at it this way: Pluto Nash, which is the biggest flop of all time in terms of money lost, made over 4 million dollars. The most horrible, most ridiculous, biggest, hugest flop of all time made EIGHT TIMES MORE MONEY than DOA: Dead or Alive.

Kind of makes you think, doesn’t it?

I apologize. I didn’t mean to make you think.

Dead or Alive concerns a world-wide martial arts tournament called (wait for it!) Dead or Alive. All of the best fighters from around the world gather on an island called (wait for it!) Dead or Alive Island. These fighters then engage in what might be called “mortal combat,” but can’t be due to copyright concerns. Anyway, it is called the Dead or Alive tournament for a reason. I’m just not exactly sure what the reason is, though, since the fights aren’t to the death. Opponents are instructed to fight until one of them is knocked out. If you win, you live. If you die…. You live, too? I guess the Dead or Alive Tournament sounded cooler than the You’ll Be Okay Don’t Worry Tournament.

This movie is filled with colorful characters, but if they don’t have bodacious Ta-Ta’s they’re not worth mentioning, so we’ll stick with those.

Name: Tina
Occupation: Pro-Wrestler
Hair: Blonde
Ta-Ta’s: Bodacious
Motivation: Wants to prove she’s a real fighter

Name: Christie
Occupation: Assassin and Thief (she double majored)
Hair: Blonde
Ta-Ta’s: Bodacious
Motivation: Wants the $10 million prize money

Name: Princess Kasumi
Occupation: Ninja Princess
Hair: Black
Ta-Ta’s: Well, she’s Asian
Motivation: Wants to find her brother who doesn’t have breasts and therefore won’t be mentioned again.

These girls arrive to the island and promptly become bestest girlfriends 4-eva. They even, no lie, play beach volleyball together, which is just so much fun I can barely stand it! Oh, girls just want to have fun!!!! When they’re not fighting in the Unconscious or Alive tournament, they make friendship bracelets and play with their Barbies and have My Little Pony Parties.

Eventually, there’s a bad guy, played by Academy Award Nominee Eric Roberts, whose resume actually says “whore for hire” now instead of actor. He creates a magic pair of sunglasses that can download other fighters’ moves into his face or something, so he can win in fights. Something like that, I wasn’t paying attention really. He might have been nominated for an Academy Award once, but he doesn’t have bodacious Ta-Ta’s.

There are a few other plot lines, like this chick with purple hair who is honor-bound to kill Princess Kasumi for reasons that only make sense to ninjas. But by the end of the movie they are BFF’s, too. They all find out that Academy Award Nominee Eric Roberts is up to no good, and so they all have a pillow fight and then pinky swear to be best friends 4-eva and to take down Eric Roberts just as soon as they finish watching Gilmore Girls together.

Lee’s Favorite Moment: This Chinese Ninja Guy who speaks English like he was raised in New Jersey decides to go investigate the island’s sinister lab. So he tells Princess Kasumi that he’s going to sneak in. He is a ninja. He practices the art of stealth. He stealthily goes up to one of the guards and then stealthily snaps his neck and then stealthily leaves his body right on the ground in the middle of the freaking lobby in front of everyone. Real good, 007. No one will notice that. Maybe you shouldn’t have murdered someone with 47 other guards standing around (whom he promptly has to fight). He fights his way into the lab, and then the security door suddenly shuts, trapping him. Wait, you mean someone noticed your 25 minute karate brawl through the entire building with every single member of the security dojo? What the hell are they teaching in Ninja School these days?

I can only hope the No Ninja Left Behind Act can help Ninja Schools better prepare our young ninjas for the challenges of tomorrow. Or at least make sure they can afford breast implants.

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