DEATH RACE 2 (a review)

DEATH RACE 2 (a review)

The straight to dvd sequel to the reboot of the Death Race franchise. This is a prequel that goes into the origins of the first Frankenstein.

The story: in the year 2012, a man is caught while robbing a bank and sent to prison where they telecast prisoners fighting to the death. The man fights and wins but gets enemies who put a bounty on his head. Then rating for the show are falling, so they come up with something different -- a car race with all sorts of traps to help the prisoners kill each other -- and everyone tries to kill the main guy. Eventually his car burns and everyone thinks he is dead but he isn't and he becomes the first Frankenstein.

Was it good?

No. Actually it was all kind of boring. There wasn't anything especially cool here. The violence was fairly tame. The girls looked hot, but skin-wise it was pg-13 which makes no sense since this is going to be marketed as an ultra-violent straight to dvd movie which means you don't have to worry about the MPAA.

And here's the thing I don't get about this movie or the other reboot Death Race (or for that matter a lot of the remakes/reboots). The original DEATH RACE 2000 was great because it satirized America's love of violence by making everything completely over-the-top. It at once embraced with plenty of violence and nudity, and had something to say, AND it managed to do it while being pretty funny. Those might seem contradictory (feeding people's desire for sex and death while commenting on people's desire for sex and death) and yet the movie worked. But here in the reboots they have stripped away all that worked -- this doesn't have any insight/anything to say, it doesn't do a good job of feeding people's desire for sex and violence, and it doesn't have any humor. WHY BOTHER? I mean, sure you get some extra cash by using the name but is it really that much extra money? Both these films were different enough from the original that they could have been called something totally different and been fine. I just don't get it. But whatever....

*** AVOID ***