Death Race 2050

You can watch this in two ways - as a straight-forward (semi)gorefest and/or as a satire on America and the American dream/way of life.

Both work.

It's fast-paced, there's lot of action, but some of the lines just dig between the strata of American society so if you watch it with that in mind you'll get twice as much out of it, assuming you understand irony which may rule out a few million of the people it's aimed at.

Ah well... To those, just watch the heads fly and hope that the good guys win.

Death Race 2000 was an original cinematic charm. A timeless gem with great casting and raw implementation. This one tries too hard to capture the original magic and fails. Everyone's trying too hard without the same natural charisma. The characters in the first were cast as naturals, but not here, which is the flaw. Loved the original. Perhaps a concept that does not replicate well, but this one's not even close to the original. The first, a classic; this one, forgettable.

I'm not a fan of remakes. If something was good to start with, you don't need to remake it. If it wasn't, you shouldn't try again. This is technically the second remake of Death Race 2000, the first one was a soulless endeavor that missed the point of the original movie.

This one gets a lot closer to the spirit of the original, updated with Virtual Reality and Social Media. So they have a set of alternative racers to try to beat Frankenstein, reflecting modern fears.

Some points- The resistance terrorists in this film aren't as effective as they were in the original, where they did manage to kill several racers. IN this, they manage to kill each other.

Some of the commentary is fun, with Malcolm McDowell playing a Trump-like president and the US being converted into a corporate state.

Where the movie falls down is with Manu Bennett, who has a very limited acting range, which goes between "Brooding" and "Extra- Brooding". Most of the supporting characters are equally weak.

so worth watching? Not so sure. I didn't hate it, but I didn't enjoy it like I enjoyed the original.

Being a B movie fan, it should come as no surprise that I enjoyed the 1975 Roger Corman production "Death Race 2000". As for the first remake of that movie - the 2008 "Death Race" starring Jason Statham - well, not very much, namely because it took the title of the original movie and not that much else. But when I heard this second remake was out and that it was going to be more faithful to the original movie, I decided to give it a whirl in my Blu-ray player.

It did not take long into watching the movie to realize that the filmmakers had seriously botched things. There are many problems with this movie, ranging from the cheesy special effects to the racing sequences being very poorly directed and edited. But the biggest misstep the movie makes is that it is *extremely* strident in tone. It crams in so many attempts at heavy-handed humor that you'll be wanting some dramatic relief from the comedy.

Actually, had the humor been actually funny, that might not have been a problem. But I counted only three gags that made me smile slightly. The rest of the humor is extremely unsubtle with its writing and execution.

The cast shows signs of talent, but apparently because of director G. J. Echternkamp's command to endlessly mug and shout their dialogue, all the actors come across as thoroughly obnoxious. Not one character in the movie comes across even remotely sympathetic.

The best that can be said of this movie is that it makes the Jason Statham movie look much better in comparison. Needless to say, it makes the 1975 original come across as deserving of multiple Academy Awards.

In true Deathrace style, Death Race 2050 is a low budget gory 90 minutes of entertainment.

The cars are a bit...cardboard and sticky tape ( well the AI one in particular) but don't let that put you off. Enjoy the film for what it is.

And its another chance to see Jonathan Manu Bennett (Crixus from Spartacus) who is pretty decent.

Yo be fair the acting is pretty decent throughout, cliché in abundance, but good fun.