According to Arès, Paris will be quite different from now in the year 2035. There no longer is a government and society has changed. There are 15 million people without work and many of them live in the streets in tents. Laws have changed and people are allowed to sell their bodies or part of it or participate in life threatening experiments. This also has had a big influence on sports. Fighting has become the sport everyone loves to watch and bet on. Arès is one of the men who has been fighting for a long time using smartdrugs to enhance himself. He once was at the top of the leaderboard, but his life has changed and he has left the fighting cage behind him. When his sister is arrested and is viewed as a terrorist the only way he can make sure she is set free is to pay the people holding her. To earn money he can only do one thing: Get back into the cage and take a high dose of an enhancement drug which has previously killed everyone who tried.
The futuristic poster, which shows that the Eiffel tower is now sporting huge screens which show the fight, looks interesting. You see Arès walking through this alternate reality with his two nieces and you get the feeling you are watching something which could be compared to The Fifth Element. If you start watching this movie with that expectation though you’ll quickly be disappointed. This is a fighting film in which the main character isn’t only fighting against opponents, but also against the system. Besides that he’ll also have to protect his two nieces, one of which is a rebellious teenager who doesn’t want anything to do with him.
With its running time of only 80 minutes it is a short movie and although the world looks pretty good the movie doesn’t manage to create a convincing story. The fights are short and shot and edited in a way that they aren’t exciting to watch. Which leaves the events outside of the ring and there the story lacks depth. The end result is a disappointing film where you never really care much about what happens to the characters.
