DEATH RACE [R]
review by Padraic Maroney

A time-honored complaint about Hollywood is that everything old is new again and that Tinseltown has no new ideas left. When you consider the huge number of remakes being churned out, this would appear to be true.

But a decidedly huge rift has grown in the genre. First, there are the faithful remakes that follow the source material with only minor tweaks to make it relevant to a modern audience. The second group consists of those that are remakes in name only, retaining the most basic premise while nipping, tucking, tweaking and chopping everything else. Being that the movies being remade tend to be cult and semi-popular titles — and not exactly the AFI Top 100 to start — improving upon them should not be that hard. Yet for the most part, improving does not tend to happen all that much with the modern-day counterparts.

Death Race continues that proud tradition, a remake of the schlock chestnut Death Race 2000. The original’s producer Roger Corman is on board here, and has hired pedigreed action star pedigree of Jason Statham to take over for David Carradine, with Tyrese Gibson taking over for Sylvester Stallone. The first film, released in 1975, doesn’t carry much content over into its remake. The new version is a souped-up, Red Bull spaztastic version of the original.

Despite carrying an R-rating for language and violence, the film panders to 14-year-old alpha males who like fast cars, big explosions and lots of inane action sequences. The only thing missing to make this the most totally awesome film ever for the teenage boy demographic is some T&A (which is odd considering that the racers are co-ed). For everyone else, there are plenty of shirtless Jason Statham scenes where he gets to flaunt the abs he made famous in the Transporter movies and the hyperkinetic Crank.

Be sure, there are no subplots added into the Running Man play-alike — what you see in the trailer is what you get. Jensen Ames (Statham) is falsely convicted of murdering his wife and gets sent to prison, where the insane the prison warden offers him a chance to go free if he will join the televised sport that is run from the prison. All he has to do is win the Death Race competition under the guise of the masked driver known as Frankenstein.

Action sequences abound, with almost half of it spent on the track during the race. What is missing is any kind of character depth that allows us to really care which of them lives or dies. Sure, we are supposed to route for the insanely ab-tastic Statham because he was done wrong. We don’t.

One thing the film does not lack is villains. Of course, there are the other drivers who are Ames’s nemeses, many of which plot attacks against or confront Ames and his crew prior to the start of the race. But it is Joan Allen’s warden Hennessey that gives us a real villain to root against and hiss at. She seems to revel in the role, having a ball playing an ice queen. The warden knows and controls everything that happens in both the prison the race itself. Nothing happens without Hennessey okaying it beforehand.

What is most surprising about “Death Race” is that this update is written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, who brought us the Resident Evil franchise. Anderson knows how to craft an entertaining story that brings fans back for seconds (and unfortunately, sometimes thirds). Maybe because he felt restricted by the basic premise — which is all that was kept from the original, save for the names of a few of the main characters — kept him from being able to fully deliver the goods. But whereas he was targeting video gamers with his zombie franchise, Death Race seems to be pandering to find the lowest common denominator for its audience approval.

With only Allen’s performance, the fast driving and plentiful explosions going for it, it could very well feel like your own death is coming while watching Death Race — or at the very least the death of a few brain cells. The under-performer marks the death knell for the summer season, which, in standard fashion, is going out with a whimper, rather than a crash! boom! bang!•••

Padraic Maroney is a regular contributor to the national network EDGE.