Death Race 2 Review

by ~Hailtothechimp

An origin story for convicted cop killer Frankenstein. This is Rumor Control, here are the facts. If I've

said it once, I'll say it again. I. Love. Paul W.S. Anderson's movie! I love AVP, I love The Resident Evil

Tetrology, I love Pandorum, and I love Mortal Kombat. But I think the one I may love most of all (if

that's even possible) is Anderson's remake of the 1975 Roger Corman cult classic Death Race. Before

I continue my review I should compare the original Death Race 2000 and the remake. In Death Race

2000, the plot was that a totalitarian government had taken over the United States, and a show was

created to satisfy the unhappy people: Death Race! In this version the combatants had to drive cross

country whilst killing people to get points. Whoever had the most points wins. There were no guns,

no smoke, no napalm or missiles on these cars, just good old fashioned vehicular manslaughter. The

film starred David Carradine as Frankenstein and a pre Rocky and post Party at Kitty and Stud's star

Sylvester Stallone. The film was cheesy and had a tongue in cheek approach to the violence and

deaths of innocent lives. But overall it was a pretty damn good B-Movie. Then in 2008, Anderson

created the remake Death Race, and I loved every freakin' minute of it! It was well acted, had great

scenes of action, had a great story and was violent and gritty. It was definitely one of Jason

Statham's best movies and a loving homage to the original (more on that later). Then about a year

ago I found out that there was going to be a sequel and my heart leapt, it leapt even higher when I

found out that Anderson was on board (because we all know that an Anderson less sequel to an

Anderson film just doesn't work). But then it sank when I found out that it was going to be direct to

DVD. But still, there have been some good direct to DVD sequels that came out last year (The Marine

2, Universal Soldier: Regeneration and Smokin' Aces 2: Assassin's Ball) so I remained optimistic. Well

the other day I found it on the Internet (shhhhh.) and watched it. So what do I think of it? Well lets

just say that I'm both happy and pissed off! We'll get the good out of the way first since the bad will

take a while. I have to say, the first 45 minutes or so of Death race 2 was just incredible, even for

DTV standards. The film throughout is well acted by the cast. Sean Bean plays the secondary

antagonist Markus Kane. While we don't see a lot of Bean, what we do get is good nevertheless.

Luke Gross (Hellboy 2: The Golden Army) plays Carl Lucas, our main protagonist who later goes on

the become Frankenstein. Gross does a good job in his role, but I feel that he was not on par with

Statham. Danny Trejo plays Goldberg, the head of Lucas' pit crew. As usual Trejo does an excellent

job as an actor, but his role both confuses and infuriates me. His role bothers me because this is

supposed to be Coach's role (played by Ian McShane in the previous film). Its here with Trejo's role

that the first of the films many plot holes begins. You see Coach has been in Terminal Island for

years, and was the one who first started with the original Frankenstein. Yet in this he's nowhere to

be seen, at all! This also leads to another plot hole. In the first film Coach stated that he, Gunner and

Lists built the car Frankenstein drives, yet in this there are 9 cars and 18 candidates and they all

have to run to their cars (all of which are from the first film, but more later) and Lucas gets into the

car he drives later on. To me that is a big plot hole. Look, I understand if they couldn't get McShane,

but couldn't they've at least got an actor who looked and sounded somewhat like McShane and

called him Coach? Because I could have accepted that. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Frederick

Koehler reprises his role as Lists, and is one of the two original cast members to return. As before

Lists basically spews out information and stutters. That in itself was perfect, because I really like

Lists. Sadly Jacob Vargas could not reprise his role as Gunner. Ving Rhames plays one of our two

main antagonists. There really isn't much to say other then its Ving Rhames. Lauren Cohan plays

September Brooks, our Hennessy for the film. Like McShane it's quite understandable that they

couldn't get Joan Allen, and this even starts out as a plot hole. However by the end they sort of fix it,

but not too well. Cohan, to me, was trying to act to much like Allen and fails a little at it. She's a mildly

good antagonist, but she's no Hennessy. Quite frankly the two differ. Hennessy got what she

wanted through intimidation, black mail, threats and corruption. Long story short, you mess with

Hennessy and you die. Brooks on the other hand gets what she wants through seduction, making

her less threatening then Hennessy. I'm more afraid of catching a sexually transmitted disease just

by looking at her rather then her doing something to kill me. Last but not least, Robin Shou reprises

his role as 14K.His acting is still the same from the first, but in this case he's given a much bigger role.

Now we'll move on to action. God Damn! Before Death Race begins we get many great scenes of

fighting. The choreography for these fights is well shot, well done and well played out. There are

even a few gun fights and car chases which are also done very well. There are still many fights to go

before the first race and each on is exciting and entertaining. For the most part, the F/X are quite

good. That and the action scenes make me wish that this was a theatrical film, since they could have

done so much more with this movie if they had done so. The budget could have been bigger and the

film longer. The story is pretty good, but feels cramped and rushed. This does make sense because

we know about Death Race and the rules of it as well as some of the characters. This was done just

as an origin story for Frankenstein and how he came to be. Now we move on to the bad. For one

thing I feel there isn't a lot of character development. We're introduced to a character and for the

rest of the film that's how they'll be. There's even a part with a forced sex scene (something I like to

call "Pulling a Kids are Alright on us") that doesn't fit well and should never have been. The racers

themselves are nothing more but cookie cutter characters from the first. Sure we're introduced to

them all, something the previous film did not do, but they're not really interesting, some are quite

bad even. There are also numerous plot holes, to many to even mention. There are so many in fact,

that I don't even think we can count most of this film as part of the canonicity of the first film. But the

thing that upsets me the most is the Death Race. For the most part its pretty good, but the racing

scenes pale in comparison to the fights that happened before. The camera is shaky and there are

horrible edits during the race, and most of the time we don't know what's happening. Did Lucas just

crash? No it was someone else. Is that guy dead? No he's over there. Is that Mick Jagger in the

corner? No it's a fat kid on a slip-n-slide, it makes no sense! The racing scenes have to be some of

the worst editing I've seen in a while. Quite frankly, its here that the movie becomes more of a rip off

of the first rather then a prequel. Hell one character is exactly like Machine Gun Joe. How do I know

that? Because he's dressed exactly the same! But you want to know what the worst part is? A

majority of the racing scenes… Is stock footage from the first movie! I shit you not. That's why the

camera and editing suck, so you don't know its from the first. There's even a scene where Lucas tells

his navigator Katrina to use the napalm. We then get a quick image of the napalm canister. Now if

you pause it you can see that it's the part from the first movie when Jenson killed Colt by launching

the napalm from his navigator's seat, crushing it on the ceiling, covering Colt's car and setting him

aflame with the cigarette lighter. Can you tell yet that I love the first movie? However, this is quite

understandable since this film only has a budget of $14 million, while the first had a budget of $45

million. There are, however, a few good original scenes of racing in this one that are pretty exciting.

But again, if this was a theatrical film it could have had a bigger budget and more time for story and

character development. In the end, is Death Race 2 a good movie? Even with all of its flaws and plot

holes, I still felt it was pretty damn good. It had a great start and went down hill at the fifty minute

mark, but it was still good. Not as good as the first or the original, but good. So if you're a fan of

Death Race or Paul W.S. Anderson, then this film comes recommended.

Verdict: High Matinee  

That was Rumor control. And those were th-

(Police burst in)

Cop 1: Freeze! Get down on the ground!

HttC: What? What did do?

Cop 2: Your under arrest for the murder of your wife!

HttC: I don't have a wife you idiot!

Cop 1: Oh really? Then what's with the dead body upstairs?

HttC: But that doesn't make any… (Looks out the window and sees a man in black attire and a black mask. Said man points at HttC and makes a shooting motion.)

HttC: Goddamn you Pachinko! (HttC is bashed over the head and arrested.)