Review: Death Race 2

Lauren Cohan stars as September Jones, a bitchy TV reporter and disgraced former Miss Universe who is inspired to create a new TV show after seeing a prison riot at a prison aptly named Terminal Island (Don’t get it? Look it up on the IMDb). Given that the network she works for is owned by the same Weyland Corporation (hmmm, that sounds familiar too) that owns Terminal Island, she comes up with the genius idea of forcing prison inmates to compete in televised fights for a PPV crowd. She even thinks she has a bonafide champion in Carl Lucas (Luke Goss), who got himself arrested and incarcerated after accepting a getaway driver gig in a bank robbery masterminded by his good friend and mobster Markus Kane (Sean Bean), that went askew thanks to his numbskull fellow would-be robbers. After a while, Miss September (see what I did there?) decides the fights just aren’t enough, and comes up with a new, four-wheeled outlet to satiate audiences’ bloodlust and reap the ratings rewards in the process. Ving Rhames plays the CEO of the Weyland Corporation, Danny Trejo and Tanit Phoenix play a pit crew member and navigator, respectively, whilst Robin Shou plays driver/inmate 14K.

I don’t know if it was the benefit of having low expectations but “Death Race”, the 2008 sorta-kinda remake of the 1975 Paul Bartel/Roger Corman cult classic (and inspiration for Carmageddon) “Death Race 2000” was better than it had any right to be, and not just because it was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson (“Resident Evil”, “Alien vs. Predator”). It was watchable junk, even if it unwisely jettisoned all of the hilariously black satire from the first film. Well, this 2010 prequel to “Death Race” (and not a remake of “Deathsport”, which was the sequel to “Death Race 2000”), directed not by Anderson but by Roel Reine (the decent straight-to-DVD flicks “Pistol Whipped” and “The Marine 2”) is better than it has any right to be, too. It’s not a bad film, but it’s weaker than “Death Race”, which was no masterpiece to begin with.

Instead of David Carradine (“Death Race 2000”) or Jason Statham (“Death Race”) the lead protagonist this time is played by Luke Goss. Yes, one of the guys who used to want to be ‘famous’ as a member of 80s Britpop group Bros. Sadly, yours truly can admit to owning a Bros t-shirt at one stage. Shut up, I was like 8 at the time. Anyway, dodgy boy band past aside (it’s pretty amusing that the guy ended up playing bad arses in action movies, isn’t it?), Goss is a surprisingly fair trade for Statham, even if he was better as a villain in “Hellboy II”. The film itself, in setting up what was to become the “Death Race” (and the man who would become Frankenstein), plays much like the first film, but with a few tweaks. The biggest difference is that the actual “Race” in the title isn’t devised until late in the film, as the televised bloodsport shown here for the most part is actually more of a hand-to-hand combat bout rather than a tricked-up ultra-violent car race. In that regard, it makes most of the film look more like “Gamer” or “The Condemned” or maybe “The Running Man” than a “Death Race” flick. On that note, it’s better than “Gamer”, slightly better than “The Condemned”, but nowhere near “The Running Man”, a classic.

The performances are pretty good for this kind of thing. As well as the fairly solid Goss, there’s slumming bad arses Sean Bean and Ving Rhames, who are both really good but not in the film nearly enough. Bean, in particular, is just plain mean in this film, but ends up completely wasted. Danny Trejo fans, meanwhile, will love his work here as a bad arse Mexican named Goldberg. Yes, Goldberg. The soundtrack has an interesting mix of not-bad rap as well as Spiderbait’s cover of ‘Black Betty’ getting another run. It’s a better song than the original, but geez, how old was it by this point? As for the action, there’s a teeny bit less shaking of the camera (a flaw with the first film), but it’s still there, and no fun at all, because it’s hard to tell what’s going on. The opening car chase is the only moment free of camera-shaking and it’s well-done, thankfully not over-edited. Yes, there’s some slow-mo, but it’s used more for dramatic import, rather than coolness. The best part of the entire film is the operatically violent final five minutes where loose ends get tied up. It’s pretty memorable in an otherwise forgettable but passable film. Although he didn’t direct the film, Paul W.S. Anderson produced the film and co-wrote the story with Tony Giglio (director of the horror flick “Timber Falls”), the latter getting sole ‘screenplay’ credit, however. Personally, I suspect that Anderson’s contributions were likely in-name only here. I guess all up the film can be considered watchable, but a little less so than “Death Race”.

Rating: C+