Plot: What’s it about?
Ah, the remake. What in the world would Hollywood do without it? From campy television shows from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s to low-budget films that gave some stars their big break, the “Dream Factory” that is Hollywood just can’t seem to come up with some truly original ideas as of late. For those that don’t know, “Death Race 2000” was one of director Roger Corman’s films that gave a young Sylvester Stallone his shot and thus paved the way for him to do countless “Rocky” and “Rambo” movies. Corman’s films aren’t the best out there, but he was committed to them and he’s noted for giving a few huge stars their break. “Death Race” is a remake of said film with an already established action star in Jason Statham filling Sylvester Stallone’s role. Admittedly it’s been so long since I’ve seen the original “Death Race 2000” that I’ll just have to take the new movie on its word and am not sure how true to the original it is. I have to believe, though, that it’s fairly similar as Roger Corman is listed as one of the producers of this remake.
We meet our anti heroes in 2012 after the United States economy has collapsed (something that’s eerily frightening these days). All of the prisons are controlled by corporations and the hottest show on television (internet) is “Death Race”. It’s pretty self-explanatory as to what it entails convicts race each other in cars over a three day period and the last man standing wins his freedom. Easy enough, right? Tell that to Jensen Ames (Jason Statham), a man wrongly convicted of killing his wife who was thrown in the slammer. Jensen’s unwittingly forced into the Death Race. Naturally the warden (Joan Allen, yesreally) wants the ratings to go through the roof as it’s all about how much money they can make by televising the race. Can Jensen, together with his rag tag team, win Death Race or is his ticket already been punched?
“Death Race” certainly isn’t a bad film, if anything it’s a 90 minute escape from all that’s going on and if you take it with a grain of salt then you’ll probably have a good time. This is what all of Roger Corman’s movies had in common they were so preposterous that you had to sit back and just laugh at them. This is something that “Death Race” has in spades. And it’s a veritable checklist of everything a guy wants in films: hot women, guns, car races, gruesome deaths, explosions? Check, check, check, check, and check. Statham has this role down pat and as much as I like him as an action star, the guy’s about as typecast as Kate Hudson is for the romantic comedy genre. You’ll know exactly what you’re getting with “Death Race” and that’s something you can’t say about a lot of films out there. Suspend your disbelief and you’ll probably enjoy the ride.
Video: How does it look?
“Death Race” is shown in a 2.35:1 AVC HD transfer that looks pretty darn good. Granted, this movie is literally about as dark as they come so it’s a good thing that the contrast was rock solid, black levels were right on the money and the detail is amazing. Black is the prevalent color here and there’s not much else to say. There’s some red thrown in for good measure but to call this film “industrial” is the understatement of the year. This is pretty much what we expect from Universal, who’s been putting out some pretty decent day and date titles on Blu-ray. True fans of the film will be ecstatic when they see how good this looks on their monitors.
Audio: How does it sound?
Universal continues their support of the DTS-Master Audio track and it’s a good thing as “Death Race” contains one very robust HD mix. It goes without saying that tires squeal, shots are fired and things blow up and every bit of it sounds excellent coming out of your speakers. Dialogue is very nice as well, with no distortion to be heard. A few of the surround effects are on the thin side but it’s of no consequence as the LFE are heard and heard often. For those expecting a good mix, “Death Race” delivers on all accounts.
Supplements: What are the extras?
While not the box office hit it was supposed to be, the Blu-ray does contain some interesting features. We start off with two versions of the movie, a rated version and the Unrated, I chose the unrated version. Director Paul W.S. Anderson is becoming king of the cult classics and with titles like “Mortal Kombat”, “Resident Evil” and “Event Horizon” under his belt; “Death Race” should fit in quite nicely. Anderson’s commentary with producer Jeremy Bolt is engaging, though it does tend to lag a bit in places. There are two featurettes included as well: “Start your Engines: The Making of Death Race” which is fairly self-explanatory as well as “Behind the Wheel: Dissecting the Stunts” which offers a little more substance. If you thought that being a driver in a movie was an easy job, do think again. The Blu-ray version contains Universal’s “U-Control” which gives us access to the BD Live features like allowing you to add your own commentary to the film and chat with your buddies who might also view the film with you. We have a picture-in-picture commentary as well as some pretty in-depth cast bios to boot. The Blu-ray is also D-Box enabled but I can’t, for the life of me, figure out how to get it to work. Lastly, there’s a digital copy of the film for use with your computer or iPod.
