Death Race 2050

You can watch this in two ways - as a straight-forward (semi)gorefest and/or as a satire on America and the American dream/way of life.

Both work.

It's fast-paced, there's lot of action, but some of the lines just dig between the strata of American society so if you watch it with that in mind you'll get twice as much out of it, assuming you understand irony which may rule out a few million of the people it's aimed at.

Ah well... To those, just watch the heads fly and hope that the good guys win.

Death Race 2050 (2017)

* (out of 4)

The second remake of the cult favorite 1975 film has Manu Bennett playing Frankenstein, one of five racers who is in the cross country race that gives its driver bonus points for running down pedestrians.

DEATH RACE 2050 is an extremely lazy, extremely boring and extremely annoying remake that sadly doesn't really get much of anything right. I'm one that is all for remakes but there's no question that sometimes they are disastrously wrong and that's the case for this one. The original 1975 film was a very fun film that's low-budget was used for some campy and it worked. The 2008 version wasn't all that great but it was mildly entertaining for what it was. This one, however, has so many bad things in it that it's hard to recommend anything about it.

There are all sorts of annoying things here but I think the most annoying is the fact that the film tries on purpose to be campy and it just doesn't work. The characters all seem to have been influenced by THE HUNGER GAMES and this too is rather pointless. The film has the majority of the characters either acting stupid or just so over-the-top that you're wishing they'd be killed off. The Frankenstein character, on the other hand, is extremely bland and just doesn't come across as entertaining. It certainly doesn't help that Bennett doesn't add much to the role but to be fair none of the supporting players bring much to their roles and this includes poor Malcolm McDowell who is picking up another paycheck.

The CGI effects are embarrassingly bad and some of them rival what you'd see out of an Asylum movie. The story is stupid, the added melodrama doesn't work and in all reality there's just nothing here. Well, I'd say that the over-the-top gore helps for those who enjoy the red stuff but you're best bet is to stick with DEATH RACE 2000.

My quick rating - 3.9/10. If you look at my database, you'll notice I kept this. Not because it was good, but because it tried to go back to the schlocky nonsense of the original (1973. of course, the year I was born). So the movie is the same ole, post apocalyptic world where a way to trim the population, even though they don't much bring attention to that, is by allowing drivers to kill people on the roads for sports and ratings. In doing so, this movie also tries to take jabs at the tech and always connected world along with politics. These attempts are slightly amusing but mostly fall flat. The effects are a joke, and the action is choreographed by a blind man (no offense if he/she was actually blind). This is what made the original so great, and what makes this pretty bad. It just needed to take this campy feeling and do something slightly different with it. Back to my original point, the cult classic is just that, and this belongs in the collection just because of its existence. So if you feel that way as well, check this one out. Nods to Mr. Corman for bringing that campiness back.

I'm not a fan of remakes. If something was good to start with, you don't need to remake it. If it wasn't, you shouldn't try again. This is technically the second remake of Death Race 2000, the first one was a soulless endeavor that missed the point of the original movie.

This one gets a lot closer to the spirit of the original, updated with Virtual Reality and Social Media. So they have a set of alternative racers to try to beat Frankenstein, reflecting modern fears.

Some points- The resistance terrorists in this film aren't as effective as they were in the original, where they did manage to kill several racers. IN this, they manage to kill each other.

Some of the commentary is fun, with Malcolm McDowell playing a Trump-like president and the US being converted into a corporate state.

Where the movie falls down is with Manu Bennett, who has a very limited acting range, which goes between "Brooding" and "Extra- Brooding". Most of the supporting characters are equally weak.

so worth watching? Not so sure. I didn't hate it, but I didn't enjoy it like I enjoyed the original.

It's a sequel/remake of Death Race 2000... and while it's not as good as the original it has a lot of fun, and there are some great moments.

I'm guessing most of the really negative reviews are from people that actually sat through the newer sequels to Statham's Death Race, and would never have enjoyed DR 2000.

The cars look naff, the acting and script is appalling, and the CGI and explosions are terrible. This is Cormanesque cinema at it's best, un-apologetically entertaining trash and unafraid of our seeing the 'wires' where the obvious budget limitations gave way.

Some films you have to have low expectations going in to them to enjoy. Given this is being true to Death Race 2000 and not the modern remakes this film nails the schtick very well.

I gave it a 6 because I love Death Race 2000, but it would be blasphemy to give such a shiny turd anything more than that. But it is fun, and stupid, and entertaining - you just have to get over 'America' being entirely populated with Hispanics, and looking like Mexico... All part of the charm of this dodgy little film.