Arena Wars (2024)

Arena-Wars-(2024)
Arena Wars (2024)

Studios usually focus on one particular niche when creating movies. Disney for example is part of that niche as they create family friendly films and it’s usually the basic perfect copy with a hero who goes on an adventure, becomes successful and the movie has an ending raising questions for more. Blumhouse on the other hand prefers the young adult target and mostly does young adult horror with mild jump scares and nothing too crazy as graphic to keep it at a PG-13 rating. Asylum is also in the same ballpark but they tend to focus on more of a parody style but often use famous actors who tend to make the movie fun to watch.

After analyzing how the Mahal Empire has transformed in its outlook, I have high expectations for them as they have already gone on to produce roughly a dozen movies. Mahal Empire is known all over the world for having a huge portion of their finance raised via the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo, to many familiar actors in their films and other cross actors who are offered to appear in the movie in exchange for cross-funding. All of this is not an accusation, this is what we call progress.

As far as technical improvements go, the Mahal Empire movie that started the streak set the standard that Arena Wars manages to surpass. Arena Wars seems and feels like a movie produced by a commercial studio, doing commendable jobs on set decoration, production design, fight choreography, and costume designs, all of which are far better than anything done previously by the Mahal Empire.

The story is set in the year 2045 which is futuristic, and has the premise of prisoners turned into gladiators that are fought for the entertainment of an audience. The structure remains the same the fighter who manages to win is set free. The long storyline has little relevance though, and in this case, none is necessary considering the type of film being created. The characters don’t really progress throughout the film, nor do they need to. The film checks all the boxes it had set out to do, adding in a few gags to allay the violent nature of the movie in between the action sequences.

There are issues with some of the films released by Mahal Empire, but for the most part, they have been entertaining to watch and provide critique on.

However, in the case of “Arena Wars,” Director Brandon Slagle acknowledges this juxtaposition of seasoned actors with less experienced actors, and the narrative itself, utilizes this combination more efficiently.

There are several crowd-funded films with respect to the revenue models that allow novice actors to enhance their portfolio or let their fans act in the film, which is fine it’s always been about pay to contribute to the silver screen ever since the creation of Hollywood.

What they don’t particularly succeed in is finding a way to integrate such actors into the story or plot, which quite all of them do quite well. As a rule, these actors act out as what looks like standing in a wedding reception line rather than blocking out certain parts in a stage as if it was for a feature film where each of them is given a set of lines it purchased in a dramatic way. Often times or more often than not, the view at the end feels like a performance of a high school drama where everyone has to act and be given some character. However, this does not apply to the drama which is called “Arena Wars.” The application of such content in the film exists, yes, not everything is decorous, but it serves its purpose within the framework of the plot which is more importantly that it does not break the plausibility of the reality of the universe.

In the movie “Arena Wars” viewers can appreciate the performances of Eric Roberts and Michael Madsen as well as the evergreens Robert La Sardo and Robert Donovan. The remaining cast are mostly the usual faces at Mahal Empire who are still trying their hands at acting.

In Slagle’s view, he shares co-writing credit with Mahals, Sonny, and Michael, who contributed to the plot. It is also evident that the plot of the film revolves around imprisoned gangsters who have to fight for their freedom. It reminds one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Running Man” or “Death Race” films. Such an action movie has its standards, and the bar is set at a specific level. In the case of Slagle, almost all of the delivering elements are achieved from the very start to the end.

In the case of Slagle, what worked best in “Arena Wars” is the misuse of all the resources that were allocated to him during this film. His screenplay interprets the flaws of actors into situations and vice versa and almost all of these crowdfunded films do not include that. It offers a well-tailored plot that brings joy to the general audience instead of just those who funded the perks.

My acquaintance with the Mahal Empire started with the film titled “Art of the Dead.” And this was a rather good, well-crafted movie. As a result, their movies have been more impressive in every sense than the ones of the previous. The recent ones such as “Bermuda Island” and “Night of Tommyknockers” however could be described more as “campy fun” since they lie in the AlbertaSham council of mediocrity along with Asylum and SyFy Channel movies.

In this case, “Arena Wars” is kind of that movie. So says someone who found out about the Mahal Empire for the first time, and looked for this film. In that case, there wouldn’t be any questions asked. It’s an action movie with an interesting premise. It isn’t overly complicated and contains some interesting characters, some amusing nudity, and of course, plenty of violence which is in the spirit of such movies.

Although “Arena Wars” does not bring any great advancements to the action genre, it certainly sets a high standard for other Independently Speaking who aim for crowd-funded films.

During my journey, I have noticed independent filmmakers explain and celebrate the process of how they raised the funds while boasting about how they have never gone to film school apparently having one of the biggest prerequisites to make a film isn’t important, they will learn when they get to it. This ends up creating content that ends up annoying not just the audience but the entire cast and crew. But “Arena Wars” gets it right when most fail.

Many independently financed and crowd-produced films have been constructed along the East and West fusion style era in which a single director possesses a wider range of ideas. While most if not all, know what LCD stands for and hope everyone remembers Arena Wars, Brandon Slagle’s Last Will, an independently produced film that was a mash of many genres. Certainly, Slagle played the character Mr. Slimey in his own fishy movie, while another director with the same resources and a plain script would certainly fail or overly excel, but Slagle never fails, he always manages to come on top for his films and does it with justifiable respect.

Finally, Arena Wars does one of the things most films don’t, it answers aspiring filmmakers and viewers, it shows how a good team of believers and an experienced leader along with the right equipment can materialize everything.

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