Review of Death Race (2008) by Derrick M — 22 Mar 2011

Okay, I think i'm a fan of Jason Statham. I loved both of his Crank films, I enjoyed his role in The Italian Job (best thing about that film, IMO) and I truly enjoyed his Death Race film.

Death Race doesn't have any character development, the acting's sub par, the dialogue is cliched and the plot is quite a mess, but damn, this film is entertaining. Fast cars, bloody deaths, big explosions and Ian McShane being awesome as ever make this film really enjoyable.

You'd think this film was a video game adaptation, considering it was made by Paul W.S Anderson, who's responsible for four Resident Evil films and 2 Mortal Kombat movies. You can definately see the video game influences with the cars running over the switches to get weapons (Kill switches are especially fun).

Henessey, the sadistic prison warden, is definately a brilliant antagonist, who wants to pump up the ratings as more ratings equals more money, and shes willing to do anything to do so, including planting bombs, sabotaging races and murder. Her big antagonistic truck that she was building, The Dreadnought, seems much better in theory than in execution. Its like the director just gave a kid some broken up vehicles and made the design around whatever mess was made. It did look cool though.

Much more enjoyable than any of Paul W.S Anderson's Resident Evil movies.