Death Race 2

Introduction

2008's Death Race re-make was a surprisingly enjoyable film, not just because it showed Jason Statham in a decent role but also because the re-imagination came from the head of Paul W.Anderson. So two years later comes the inevitable sequel...except it isn't.

Death Race 2 is actually a prequel to Death Race and the helm is taken by Roel Reiné. TV News reporter September Jones (Lauren Cohan) works for the Weyland Corporation on Terminal Island penitentiary and after covering the rather visceral brutality of a prison report, convinces her boss Weyland (Ving Rhames) to televise a new kind of show called Death Match. Two convicts duke it out in an arena with various weapons until one is either killed or submits. Initially market share for this show is extremely high but the rather fussy modern home audience soon start to get bored when successive fights all end with a submission rather than death. Jones, a former Miss Universe who was stripped of her title after discovery of sexual relationships with all five judges, is under pressure from Weyland to come up with something to restore the market share...

Meanwhile in the real world, getaway driver Carl 'Luke' Lucas (Luke Goss) has agreed to do a favour for his boss Markus Kane (Sean Bean) by providing the getaway for his young son's gang who want to pull a bank robbery. Lucas has served Kane for a number of years without anyone getting hurt, but this robbery goes seriously awry due to poor planning by the youngsters and Lucas finds himself killing a policeman in order to save the day. After a high speed chase with the police, Lucas finds himself on Terminal Island and the target of Jones for a place in her new televised sport - Death Race. Lucas initially turns Jones down, on two levels, but soon finds himself in one of the driving seats after Jones deliberately places gentle con Lists (Frederick Koehler) in one of the final Death Match bouts.

So Lucas ends up behind one of the wheels of the Death Race cars alongside co-driver Katrina Banks (Tanit Phoenix), with a pit crew consisting of Lists, Goldberg (Danny Trejo) and Rocco (Joe Vaz). All is looking good after the first stage, but Markus Kane doesn't believe his trusted driver won't at some stage grass on him and so puts a large contract on his head...

Extras

Aside from a commentary I haven't listened to, all the extras are pretty short and cover the storyline, the cars and the stunts in the film. There's also some deleted scenes but the film is definately better off without them in.

Overall

I have to admit I was a little confused by this film at first, mainly because I hadn't realised that it was supposed to be a prequel. The idea was to show the genesis of Death Race as evolution from prison riots through the inital Death Match show that is the latest in a string of extreme reality TV shows depicted in film. It also doesn't really help that it takes us a while to actually get our main guy in Luke Goss to Terminal Island.

This isn't a bad film by any means and whilst it generally suffers from having a miniscule budget compared to its predecessor, it has its good points. The ensemble cast including Sean Bean and Danny Trejo are pretty good, although I'm not completely convinced with Ving Rhames as the head of a corporation, although I guess you could look at a number of US corporations that have come out of the rap scene as a comparison. The huge plus point is that the production crew were able to use all of the original cars, which let's face it are the stars of this film and the previous one.

The main problem with this film is that it takes a while to get where it wants to go, which is the origins of badass driver Frankenstein, and then ends kind of abruptly mid-flow. This is actually deliberate as well, with director Roel Reiné seemingly looking to answer everyone's questions on the beginnings of the franchise's most popular driver. Only problem is, I don't recall any pressing need to know the answer to that question, especially as the character was voiced, albeit rather briefly, by David Carradine in the 2008 film and I'm not convinced that hard core fans may be ready to allow ex-Bros star Luke Goss to step into those shoes, although depending on when the inevitable Death Race 3 is set, it may not be an issue.

This isn't a bad film, but not a great one either - I'd say this is definately a renter rather than a keeper...