Arcade comes from an interesting time. In the 90s VHS had really hit its stride, and even Dvd had started. So many companies found it was easy to make something cheap that could skip theatres and go straight to video. But to sell such films they had to have fun box covers, wacky concepts and/or some star power to push them. It also helped if you could make these as good as possible. These days stuff like The Asylum and Sy-Fy have found that a concept alone can sell a lazy cash grab, but back then even the worst films had some effort put into them.
Arcade is what happens when Charles Band and Albert Pyun watch Tron. It follows some teenagers as they play the next great thing in video-games, a virtual reality adventure called Arcade. But Arcade learns and adapts, and if you die in the game you...well,kinda just vanish in real life. To stop the game somebody has to beat it.
Arcade has a solid script (shockingly by David S Goyer of Blade and The Dark Knight fame) and some good actors doing admirable jobs given the project they are in. It is also a bit more creative than just the horror version of Tron. Pyuns directing leaves a lot to be desired here (he always was a bit hit or miss with how he handled filming), but I can't fault him ambition with how much CG was to be used in such a cheap film from the 90s (this was filmed before Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park).
Unfortunately for those involved, they had made a CG videogame world, where people from our world go into it for an adventure. There is a bit with racing cycles that travel on lines of light. The people in the game wear jumpsuits and helmets. The villain is some kind of master programme for the game. So Disney, the makers of Tron, called up New Moon and said 'Come on...'
So while initial footage was poor in quality, it looked like typical pre-T2 CG, it all had to be scrapped and redone. Time and money means that it was all just slapped together and thrown out. So we have a film that looks like fried garbage. It's understandable why, but it does look horrifically bad.
Despite its (rightful) neutering by the cease and desist, Arcade is a fun and creative take on the virtual world concept that was hot at the time. Controversially, I prefer it to Tron, which I mostly found boring (Tron Legacy was more my bread and butter). Arcade was never boring. Its fun and short, with a good script and some talent bringing the required skill for the is film. Its not something I can recommend to everyone, but if you enjoy cheap little adventures then Arcade is slightly better than the average.
