Movie Reviews of Death Race
- Movie: Death Race (2008)
Technically, it's a remake of Paul Bartel's schlocky Death Race 2000 from 1975. But director Paul W.S. Anderson also uses his gig as an excuse to revisit every innocent-man-behind-bars cliché that has been introduced from then 'til now.
Death Race imagines a flawed and brutal penal system where private corporations run prisons for profit and inmates at the Terminal Island Penitentiary are forced to compete in a televised, NASCAR-esque sprint to the death. Jensen Ames is a decent man who's framed for murdering his wife because Hennessey, Terminal Island's cold-blooded warden, needs a replacement driver on the eve of a major race.
I wouldn't hire Anderson to helm a beer commercial, but then again, I don't work for Universal. The studio had to know what they were getting, however, once they handed Anderson the keys to this vehicle. This helps explain why Death Race resembles an Xbox game that we want to control (or, at least, turn off) but can't.
Erratic editing and horrific zooms butcher already repetitive racing sequences. Washed-out production values and a bleak color scheme often make it hard to distinguish which menacing road warrior is leading the race. The gratuitous violence is sadistic in nature, pausing only when Anderson's misogynistic camera lingers -- in slow motion, of course -- on Natalie Martinez and her curvaceous femal e co-stars.
Allen had such fun biting heads off in the Bourne franchise that she relished the notion of once again playing a villain who is, to quote one of Anderson's scripted gems, "judge, jury, and executioner." But Allen needs to be careful. Put too many of these stinkers on the resume and it's her career that could be sentenced to death.
|
