DOA: Dead or Alive (2006) starring Jaime Pressly, Devon Aoki, Holly Valance, Sarah Carter, Natassia Malthe directed by Corey Yuen Movie Review

DOA: Dead or Alive (2006)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Holly Valance in DOA: Dead or Alive (2006)

DOSH: Dead and Smoking Hot

Evidently "DOA: Dead or Alive" is based on a computer game and it could quite possibly be the movie to get me hooked on video games again. Okay so if anyone reads that having watched "DOA: Dead or Alive" they know that makes me shallow but to be honest I don't care because this is a movie made to entertain men who like watching attractive women in bikinis and heavily choreographed action and I am one of them. That is all there is to it and whilst there is a slim storyline thrown in "DOA: Dead or Alive" is about babes in bikinis and blistering action.

Fighters are invited from all around the globe including Princess Kasumi (Devon Aoki), wrestler Tina Armstrong (Jaime Pressly) and thief Christie Allen (Holly Valance) to participate in DOA, an ultimate fighting competition on a remote island. Having parachuted in the 3 woman along with a fourth called Helena (Sarah Carter) unite as they discover all is not as it seems and Donovan (Eric Roberts), the man running the competition has ulterior motives.

Jaime Pressly in DOA: Dead or Alive (2006)

So as pretty much mentioned I have never played the computer game on which "DOA: Dead or Alive" is based and don't know how true to the game it is. Never the less from a narrative point of view it certainly resembles a game where we have a fighting competition which is a gauntlet of challenges before then fighting the evil master mind come the end. And stylistically it has the look, the out of this world style fighting and characters who when take each other on have plenty of over the top moves shown in slow motion. Don't get me wrong because this isn't a great movie with great martial art based fight scenes as it is all tightly edited to be snappy but it imitates the fight sequences from video games quite nicely.

Aside from doing a surprisingly decent job of bringing to life the action and look of video games there is the exploitative side. That means we have women in bikinis sometimes fighting, sometimes playing beach volleyball sometimes just looking smoking hot. There is nothing explicit going on thanks to the editing which makes sure of that but that also means there are some tease scenes such as one featuring Holly Valance fighting in a bath towel. It is what it intended to be, a tease for young boys who will enjoy watching Jaime Pressly, Devon Aoki, Holly Valance and Sarah Carter all looking smoking hot. But in fairness thanks to the snappy editing they also look good when it comes to the action.

What this all boils down to is that "DOA: Dead or Alive" is what it intended to be, a movie which looks like a video game with plenty of snappy action whilst also being sexy with bikini clad babes who looking smoking hot. It certainly isn't a movie for everyone and certainly not a great martial arts movie with the fight scenes being heavily edited but it is a bit of a guilty pleasure.


LATEST REVIEWS