WARNING: This Review Contains Spoilers

This article was originally supposed to look at the comparisons between Death Race 2000 and Death Race. However, from my recollection, Death Race is not a direct remake of the original film – whereas Death Race 2050 is exactly that. Based on the short story The Racer by Ib Melchior, we follow five drivers in a cross-country race – taking down civilians to be rewarded points (think of it like real-life Grand Theft Auto).

The Cheese Factor

                Obviously, Death Race 2000 never took itself seriously and looking back at the film it will naturally look cheesy compared to many of the films we have now. What I enjoyed about Death Race 2050 is that it did exactly the same thing, did not take itself seriously at all. If I am honest, it’s possibly even cheesier than its 1975 counterpart.

People = Points

                I am probably starting to sound like a broken record when I talk about this sort of thing but with films with death in the title, we can’t not talk about the carnage these drivers leave behind. In the original film, it was actually rare to see any blood and we didn’t look at the flattened head of Calamity Jane’s navigator. However, the remake decided to crank up the gore – including having a spectator swinging around someone’s intestine following an explosion caused by Tammy.

Honourable Mention

                As I mentioned at the start, the origin of this review was actually meant to look at the Jason Statham film from 2008 – Death Race instead of Death Race 2050. I guess you can say that it is loosely a remake of Death Race 2000 as in both films there is a ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘Machine Gun Joe’ and is based around a race where people die. However, in Death Race it is set on a prison island and the winner has to be the last man standing, all other drivers have to die but in Death Race 2000 it is run like an average race, just with the added twist of killing civilians to maximise your overall points.

In Conclusion

                I haven’t been able to say this in a while, but I can’t choose between the two films. I enjoyed them both; possibly Death Race 2050 a little more butfor the wrong reasons.

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LeoLoves

Writing and reviews - all about what this Leo Loves