DOA: Dead or Alive

Playing out like a fourteen year old schoolboys wet dream, DOA (to use it's nom de jour) is the movie adaptation of the massively successful beat 'em up cum boob simulator videogame. As a genre, this hasn't exactly been cinema's finest hour. With the disappointing Mortal Kombat and frankly appalling Street Fighter as stable mates, can DOA reign victorious?

Well, not really. Like the aforementioned attempts at translation to the big screen, this is ninety minutes of laughably bad trash movie making. Catch it in the right frame of mind however, and it does at times manage to achieve the hallowed status of "so bad it's good!". Crap dialogue, gratuitous female close-ups, and "I've just learnt how to act" performances at least serve to make this a memorable cinematic outing. Even if it is for all the wrong reasons.

Director Corey Yuen is no stranger to the martial arts movie, but the complete one-dimensionality of the source material is ultimately what lets him down. He deserves credit though for embracing DOA's videogame roots. This shows in a number of devices from character intro sequences, signature moves in fight scenes, garish sets, and (of course) gratuitous exploitation of the young female casts assets. Tongue is firmly in cheek here, which ensures proceedings are bad but bearable.

Sadly the biggest let down are the fight sequences. The second big selling point of the game (after excessively bouncy girls bits) is each character employs a different fighting style. Unfortunately with the movie, Holly Vallance, Devon Aoki, and Sarah Carter all look like they were trained by the same instructor. It's up to Jamie Pressly and her pro-wrestling character Tina to add variety to the action, which she does admirably. Fans of martial arts will be disappointed, but fans of the game will no doubt take pleasure in the many high kicks performed in tiny skirts.

DOA fails to KO the audience in the way it wanted; but when a movie has a fight scene featuring Holly Valance in a bath towel, can we really say it was a complete failure?