Death Race

Decided to watch Death Race despite the fact that it's been bashed by critics everywhere for being a sloppy remake of 1975's Death Race 2000 with David Carradine.

This being 2008, the movie Death Race is set not that far in the future - the year 2012: the economy's down the toilet, unemployment's at an all time high and the prisons overpopulated and run by private corporations for profit. I was laughing my head off when all this was flashed on the screen as a prologue of sorts. (It was funnier in my head, trust me).

Death Race is the new millennium's version of a gladiator sport where incarcerated drivers (and for some reason, young female navigators) with their heavily armoured and weaponed cars drive around Terminal Island Prison (like Alcatraz, but worse) in 3 laps in 3 stages over 3 days, trying to take out as many of the other drivers as you can without getting yourself killed in the process. Like any other reality show, there are its twists to make it more interesting, but I won't blow that bit.

The movie opens with a previous race where the last masked Frankenstein ("Frank") was being gunned down by Machine Gun Joe (Tyrese Gibson) and is on the last lap of the last stage of Death Race. This is also where you get first glimpse of Frank's hot, young, female navigator, Case. Frank and the car gets blown up just as he's about to cross the finish line.

Here's where our hero Jensen Ames (Jason Statham) comes into the picture: a steel mill worker made redundant by the flopping economy, collecting his last paycheque and going home to his family. Long story short, he gets framed and accused of killing his wife and gets sent to Terminal. Once there, he meets Warden Hennessey (Joan Allen), knowing his past as a racer, who offers him freedom with a catch: he just needs to win one more race as Frank.

Another thing that I reacted to was how much it cost to "watch" Death Race (the TV event) - $99 per stage, $250 for the whole package. My thought was something along the lines of, "Who would pay $250 for that, if the economy's really that bad?" I know, I know it's just a movie.

The thing I have with Jason Statham is: how is it that he always manages to NOT do an American accent in the movies that he's in (that I've seen, anyway)? He gets to keep his accent and is always written as the English bloke or the guy with the funny accent.

I was entertained enough.