Death Race

Death Race

Statham, another car movie?

Death Race is loud and stupid and even dumber on a popcorn level. The plotline has more holes than a worn out tennis shoe. While I’ve never seen the original Death Race movie, I can tell this remake isn’t too close to the source material.

Of course, Jason Statham plays another badass that drives cars and kills people just like in Crank and the Transporter. Statham must like driving cars because that is pretty much what this movie is about. Imagine Mortal Kombat and Gran Turismo mixed together.

Like any other Paul W.S. Anderson produced/directed movie, the plot is completely mindless. However, if you come to a Paul WS Anderson movie for the enriching storyline, you’re missing the point. The only thing the movie has going for are the car crashes and death scenes. They are intense. At one point, we see a guy just explode after an impact with a car. It is one of the better CGI moments.

And, I will give the movie credit for going all out with the violence. There are some mean deaths and extremely R-rated scenes.

Yet, there is something wrong with Death Race too. It feels stale. Anderson appears to have seen every death match movie that has come out in the last three years and created a ‘mash up’ of sorts in this film. Everything from the Internet subscribers to the WWE type editing has been done before. In some cases, they were done with better results.

While it is a remake of Death Race 2000, it is closer to The Condemned. It is like the writer completely ripped the pages from the Stone Cold Steve Austin script and stapled them into the DR script. There is one aspect that is new.

The cars running over the weapons icon are like a videogame. I thought that was an interesting take on activating the weapons on their cars.

Death Race is a stale movie with a few bright spots, such as the races being fun in a videogame kind of way. Statham isn’t doing anything new here. Tyrese Gibson and Ian McShane are the only ones that seemed to be in on the joke and really ham it up. The car racing/fighting is fun, but not as frantic as Crank. I can’t recommend Death Race to the hardcore ‘death match’ crowd, but it certainly isn’t a boring movie either.

Grade: C-