Arena (1989)

Cheapo sci-fi about a popular wrestling/boxing match between alien species. There's not been a human champion for decades, so step up Steve Armstrong (Paul Satterfield), all-round good guy. Semi-reluctant to take up the challenge, the poor man's Flash Gordon nevertheless becomes a model of hope for the underprivileged "star station" residents who live in the Tubes.
As a fan of TV sci-fi I enjoyed seeing B5's Claudia Christian and DS9's Marc Alaimo and Armin Shimerman outside of their most famous roles, but the film itself is merely passable, at best. I can't comment on the longer 115 mins German version, but as far as the 97 mins American version goes there's nothing in the plot that long-time film fans won't have seen before. In fact, if not for one PG love scene, it'd pass for a non-challenging kid's movie.

1½ falls out of 5