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DOA: DEAD OR ALIVE (R)
Plot Summary: As the best fighters from around the world are gathered together to compete for the honor of being the world’s best, some of the female competitors unite to battle against evil.
Reason for the Rating: Pervasive martial arts and action violence, some sexuality and nudity.
I feel like the movie DOA: Dead or Alive can pretty much be boiled down to one word: completely gratuitous. Okay, I suppose that’s two words, but hopefully you get the idea. There’s simply not a whole lot to say about this movie. It feels like a big bag full of clichés and what would seem to be crowd pleasers all shaken together, poured out and labeled a movie.
I use the word “completely,” because on almost every level, this movie is gratuitous. It’s full of half-naked women, random fight scenes, glamorized petty crime, a vague plan to take over the world, and a lot more half-naked women. None of these elements are well-connected or important, and a lot of the time they don’t even make sense. But I suppose when you base an entire movie off of a best-selling video game, which is exactly what happened with DOA, you’re not often going to get much more than that.
Even the plot itself seems like something thrown into the movie, not because it’s a key unifying factor, but more because it’s one more thing to add to the pot. The movie takes place at DOA, an international fighting competition in which the best fighters from around the world come to compete for the title of ultimate champion and a ten million dollar prize. One woman in particular, a princess from the Far East named Kasumi, is competing for a lot more than prize or title. She hopes to solve the mystery of what happened to her brother, Prince Hayate, at last year’s competition. Kasumi was told he lost a fight in the competition and was killed, but she knows that he was truly the best fighter in the world and could have never lost in the way that she was told he did. Plus, his body was never found, and Kasumi is certain that something shady is going on behind the scenes at DOA. She’s right of course, but she can’t solve the mystery and root out the evil alone. By herself, she is no match for the person that eventually, without much warning or explanation, turns out to be the villain. Thankfully, she builds a bond with some of the other female competitors, and they support her when it matters most.
I guess as I explain it,
the plot seems to be pretty clear-cut and important, but I think that has more
to do with the fact that I spent a long time figuring out how to best explain it
and less to do with any obvious plot elements in the actual movie. While you’re
watching, it’s quite difficult to understand what’s happening on a deeper level
beyond the eye-candy immediately on the screen in front of you. You don’t really
know which characters are supposed to be the main characters or why. You don’t
know what motivates them or their basic personalities, so you don’t really know
who’s supposed to be good and who’s supposed to be bad. You don’t even know that
there’s a sinister plot involved until two-thirds of the way through the movie,
and even after the credits roll, that same sinister plot doesn’t make much sense
and definitely couldn’t even begin to work in real life. That’s probably why
they never actually explained it. You simply knew there was a bad guy and that
he was doing something bad. Because every movie needs a bad guy.
Overall, there’s not a
whole lot about DOA that is offensive or inappropriate. I don’t remember
there being much foul language, and the sex isn’t overt. But there is also
nothing edifying or thought-provoking about this movie either, and that’s
actually what I think makes this movie worse than most. It goes back to the
whole “completely gratuitous” idea. I feel like movies are supposed to have some
sort of meaning, even the comedies and adventure films. To me, this meaning or
overall message is what makes the film’s flaws or questionable content bearable.
But when a film lacks meaning, as DOA certainly does, then even content
that isn’t as inappropriate as it could be becomes unbearable. Simply put,
watching scantily-clad females fight each other and outsiders isn’t exactly bad,
but it’s certainly not uplifting either. And if it’s not uplifting, why watch
it?
At the end of the day, I hope our lives are full enough to where we simply don’t have the time or money to waste on something that is completely gratuitous.
FAMILYFANS RECOMMENDS:
Skip this movie. It’s total fluff.
AFTER THE SHOW:
• What does this movie teach us about the importance of teamwork and unity?
• If you were Kasumi, would you have risked your life and honor to find your brother? Why or why not?
• Which character do you think exhibited the most Christ-like qualities? Explain.
AT
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