Death Race 2

Directed by: Roel Reine

Starring: Luke Goss, Sean Bean, Danny Trejo, Ving Rhames, Robin Shou, Tanit Phoenix, Lauren Cohan

Synopsis:

In the near future, prisons are run for profit by huge corporations, who hit on the idea of televising death-matches between inmates. Meanwhile, Carl Lucas (Goss) agrees to help out on a bank heist being run by the nephew of his friend and boss, Markus Kane (Bean). When the bank job gets horribly out of control thanks to the inexperienced hothead, Carl is forced to shoot a cop and is subsequently arrested and sent to Terminal Island Penitentiary.

September Jones (Cohan), a corporate exec in charge of the Death-Matches, is worried because the fights are losing their appeal, and comes up with the idea of the Death-Race, and then forces Carl to participate. Whilst Carl finds allies on the inside, Markus Kane has decided he can’t risk Carl talking to the police so he puts a huge bounty on his head…

Review:

Readers of my review of the 2008 Death Race movie will have noted I had one or two issues with it, not least that the film jettisoned all the subversive and satirical elements of the original Roger Corman film, and instead used the template of The Longest Yard’s script.

This prequel though is one film removed from the original material, and can be looked upon in a much more favourable light. Free of the baggage of the Roger Corman film, it’s easier to appreciate this. (Having said that, at one point Sean Bean’s character can be seen watching the original Corman film!).

You may remember that the 2008 film began with the death of Terminal Island’s top driver, Frankenstein, forcing the warden to coerce Jason Statham’s character to don the mask and impersonate the deceased driver to keep the ratings high. This prequel showcases the birth of the character of Frankenstein. Luckily, thanks to the previous film being so vague on detail outside of the races themselves, the makers of this prequel have almost free-reign over the story and hardly have to do any ret-conning.

DTV sequels to big screen movies are often derided but Universal have a good track record of throwing significant resources at their DTV titles (see also, Scorpion King 2) and Death Race 2 proves to be a more entertaining film than it’s big-screen predecessor.

Firstly, it is better shot and edited, with an excellently staged shootout and car-chase to get things rolling. Also, as there isn’t a pressing need to seek a kid-friendly rating, the film is a lot bloodier and violent than the previous film, too. Opening with a really vicious prison riot, and continuing through the death-matches, there is plenty of the red stuff being splashed around.

The cast is great. Luke Goss has done some great work under makeup in the past (he was the elf-prince in Hellboy 2) and has a strong presence here. Some people might mention that he’s the poor-man’s Jason Statham, but that’s kind of the point. Sean Bean acts with a beard, chewing the scenery as mob boss Markus Kane. Danny Trejo, who seems to be in just about everything these days, is in a more jovial mood here, filling in the Ian McShane role. Lauren Cohen plays the slutty media exec and mastermind of the death match/death race, and isn’t above exploiting her sex appeal to get what she wants. Tanit Phoenix rounds out the cast as Carl’s co-pilot in the death races. Also look out for Robin Shou, who reprises his role as 14K.

When I saw the trailer for this film, I was worried that they were just going to regurgitate the race footage from the first film – most of the cars are the same, after all. There is some re-used footage and it’s easy to spot – it’s badly edited and shaky as hell. However a lot of new footage has been shot as well.

As I mentioned, this film contains the “birth” of Frankenstein, and it goes for it full-on with a really nasty sequence. However the film builds to a real crowd-pleasing ending, and a classic one-liner from Ving Rhames.

Verdict:

7 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)

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