Action Hero Movies
This movie has a simple concept but it does well to stay quite entertaining. It’s got a vibe similar to some of Van Damme’s and Scott Adkins’s movies — especially the ones where they’re in prison and forced to compete in lethal competitions for the entertaining of the viewing public. But this one has a twist — it’s based around lethal car racing. A bit like Robot Wars, with drivers. It even has a ‘house robot’.
Although its plot is simplistic and it has the odd dull patch, it’s mostly good, and occasionally very good, so I’m going to rate it Decent. This is of course helped by the Jason Statham‘s female partner in the movie — not his wife who is murdered, but his co-driver played by the beautiful Natalie Martinez — she definitely boosts the watchability of this movie. Other supporting cast members are generally decent too.
The ending was generally a good one — nice action but not topping earlier on, and a pleasant end to the story.
Sequels
If you enjoyed this movie you may be pleased to know it’s had a few sequels. But don’t get too excited yet.
There’s 4 Death Race movies in total, although Statham doesn’t come back after the first, and neither does Martinez. The 2nd and 3rd are starring Luke Goss from the Hitman remake called Agent 47 (not as good as Timothy Olyphant’s original) and the fourth Death Race movie sees a prior cast member in Danny Trejo take the lead role — he may look the part but when he’s the lead in a movie it’s generally a stinker (Machete for example).
Death Race 2 (2010) is pitched in a way that imitates the coolness of the original, showing Goss and his female co-star posing as the overwhelming feature of the movie poster, but frankly you only need to look at them to see they’re a poundshop/dollarstore imitation of Statham & Martinez. I rate it So-So, which is about 4 levels weaker than the original according to our rating system at the time of writing this review.
Death Race 3, I rate a couple of levels worse still — Barely Watchable.
Death Race 4 was even worse — literally Unwatchable.