Death Race

Reviewed by:
Eric Alt

Directed by: Paul W.S. Anderson

The Skinny: A remake of Roger Corman's 1975 cult original, Death Race is set in a corrupt, econonmically-depressed future America where prisons are corporate-owned and prisoners are forced to compete in violent sports to entertain the masses. Ex-race car driver Jensen Ames (Jason Statham) is framed and sent to prison so that he can secretly assume the identity of "Frankenstein," a mysterious masked driver who is Death Race's most popular combatant.

The Good: The cast is surprisingly good for this kind of movie. Statham pretty much owns the stoic badass archetype, but it's both odd and oddly refreshing to see Joan Allen (as the villainous head warden of the prison) and Ian McShane (as a crusty old mechanic) along for the ride.

The Bad: Let's forget the fact that this remake completely misses the point of the original and focus on the fact that Death Race is literally its own video game tie-in. These faceless, interchangable monster cars drive over lit-up icons to unlock weapons. Seriously. Why not just hand out wireless controllers to the audience? Where the original was meant to be satirical, this is a straight-faced, generic piece of personality-less scrap metal with nothing at stake.

Co-Pilots: Luckily for Death Race's viewing audience, each driver has a co-pilot bussed in from the nearby State Correctional Faciltiy for Pouty Models with 'Tude.

Theater, DVD, or TNT in Five Years? Rent it, but be warned: This is basically a video game for people too dumb to work an Xbox.