Death Race 2050

OK. So it is cheap. The effects are terrible. The acting OK. The music choices vary in quality. Now that I got that out of the way....

This remake was fantastic and amazingly true in tone to the original making many improvements along the way. No spoilers here except to say that the updates made sense, the characters were fun, and everyone seemed to be having a good time making it. Malcolm McDowell did what he does so well playing the villain.

It was episodic, but so was the original. You get the feeling that the director studied the original for what worked, then brought that and a lot more into the remake. Roger Cormen and his daughter produced, so you know it was made by the right people (Cormen produced the original as well)

If you did not like it, you would not have liked the original. It was a worthy remake that reminds us what a lot of imagination can do on a limited budget. Cormen devotees should be thrilled.

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.

Being a B movie fan, it should come as no surprise that I enjoyed the 1975 Roger Corman production "Death Race 2000". As for the first remake of that movie - the 2008 "Death Race" starring Jason Statham - well, not very much, namely because it took the title of the original movie and not that much else. But when I heard this second remake was out and that it was going to be more faithful to the original movie, I decided to give it a whirl in my Blu-ray player.

It did not take long into watching the movie to realize that the filmmakers had seriously botched things. There are many problems with this movie, ranging from the cheesy special effects to the racing sequences being very poorly directed and edited. But the biggest misstep the movie makes is that it is *extremely* strident in tone. It crams in so many attempts at heavy-handed humor that you'll be wanting some dramatic relief from the comedy.

Actually, had the humor been actually funny, that might not have been a problem. But I counted only three gags that made me smile slightly. The rest of the humor is extremely unsubtle with its writing and execution.

The cast shows signs of talent, but apparently because of director G. J. Echternkamp's command to endlessly mug and shout their dialogue, all the actors come across as thoroughly obnoxious. Not one character in the movie comes across even remotely sympathetic.

The best that can be said of this movie is that it makes the Jason Statham movie look much better in comparison. Needless to say, it makes the 1975 original come across as deserving of multiple Academy Awards.

In true Deathrace style, Death Race 2050 is a low budget gory 90 minutes of entertainment.

The cars are a bit...cardboard and sticky tape ( well the AI one in particular) but don't let that put you off. Enjoy the film for what it is.

And its another chance to see Jonathan Manu Bennett (Crixus from Spartacus) who is pretty decent.

Yo be fair the acting is pretty decent throughout, cliché in abundance, but good fun.

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.