Told You Guys I Was Hradcore!

Death Race (2008)

Rating ... C- (32)

How do you ruin a B-movie? Paul W.S. Anderson's (Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat - yes, the man's rivaling Uwe Boll at this point) Death Race seems to indicate that time will do the trick. Used to be B-Movies were simply low budget, high entertainment productions with less regard for classical elements, which isn't inherently shameful, even if its moniker suggests otherwise. Now, mired in the age of self-help, therapy, and psychiatry, Death Race presents an updated definition that strays from pointed satire and disposable entertainment into belligerent self-actualization. (Yeah, I'm a B-Movie! What of it? You don't know me!)

It's this mindset that makes Death Race nearly unwatchable. Led by the reliably awesome Jason Statham, everyone in Death Race is an insufferable badass intent on proving audiences can't just write off their macho personas. Statham is so incredibly manly he breaks opposing strike-breakers himself while the film's other males all find time to emit guttural noises towards the camera (usually as they approach it in slow motion), even if their function is purely to be defeated by Statham. This rampant badassery extends to women as well, from Joan Allen's scenery-chomping stern, matriarchal warden to Natalie Martinez's generic busty sidekick whose mere presence elicits lame metaphors, i.e. the release of a bottled up oil slick. Whenever Death Race stumbles upon a mildly creative action sequence, its effect is always flagrantly diminished because it must always be prefaced with a snide victor/victim exchange where the winner offers anticipatory gloating while the loser says something along the lines of "OH SHIT!"

Death Race offers little by way of a rewarding narrative, meaning it was much better when it was called Mario Kart and you were able to perform all the swift driving and car-to-car attacking yourself. Coincidentally, Death Race was also far more entertaining when it was called Death Race 2000 and it was created in the 70's with Roger Corman's gleeful unadornmant and blatant subtext, which didn't exactly make it good, but at least made it amusing, which in turn made it a reasonably successful B-movie of old. Death Race occurs in the near future of sensationalized economic ruin and draws obvious parallels to 2007's WWE shlockfest The Condemned in its depiction of bloodthirsty prolies savoring internet-streamed broadcasts of graphic sporting competitions. Where The Condemned essentially ripped of Kenji Fukisawa's Battle Royale, the sensibilities of Death Race remain closer to its predecessor, even if it's stripped of the former's underlying commentary in favor of rousing violence. (What is this, Dawn of the Dead?) In Corman's Death Race 2000 the racers mowed down ordinary citizens and scored bonus points for those less economically contributing, including women, children, and old people, with the overall joke likening the viewers of such a program to the folks killed during it. Here the carnage is completely car to car with no third parties, no real chaos, no apprehension, and no bite. That Statham's crowd favorite racing persona Frankenstein is one in a long line of Frankensteins is no longer a twist that comments on the American public's gullibility and infatuation with icons but merely an excuse for him to don a mask that badassishly intimidates his opponents. Of course, when you're the only guy who actually navigates the track's shortcuts and you have the ability to drive backwards around the course for a spell and still come out on top, do you really need intimidation on your side in the first place? Like the relationship between most originals and their remakes, the existence of Death Race in the presence of Death Race 2000 is simply excess.