A Race to the Death… Now that’s Entertainment!

I want to try something new today. I want to write a little longer, and instead of the usual rating I give at the end of the review, I’m going to let you rate it yourselves based on a couple of questions I’m going to ask. OK? OK.
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear Death Race? I don’t know about you, but I see an R-rated version of The Fast and The Furious with lots of bloody deaths. Well it wasn’t exactly that; not too far off though.

It’s like The Fast and The Furious in that Jason Statham (You know him as Frank Martin from The Transporter, or my favourite, Chev Chelios from Crank) is in the movie, who is very much like Vin Diesel in the sense that they are both big name action stars. But unlike The Fast and The Furious, Death Race is a remake of a cult 70s horror/satire movie, Death Race 2000.

Can you tolerate a movie with little suspense and zero plot?
Death Race opens with a race shot that has so many quick cuts and extreame close-ups that you don’t really know what is going on. We see a fine lady eject from the passenger’s seat of the fast moving car, and the driver of the car crashing and burning in flames. Then in an entirely different scene, we see Jason Statham’s character’s wife being killed and him framed for the murder. Cut to six months later, Jason Statham’s character is brought to an isolated high security prison where he meets Joan Allen, who is the warden (You remember her as the Agent incharge of finding Jason Borne in Bourne Supremacy, and helping him locate where it all began in Bourne Ultimatum). She tells him about Death Race, which is now a hit TV show with several million viewers. And of a legendary driver, the crowd’s favourite, Frankenstein, who died in the beginning of the movie. The idea is that Jason Statham will race for her as Frank (Frank wears a mask) so her ratings and viewers will increase, and in turn he earns his freedom. He agrees, but later finds out that she was the person that had his wife killed.

The rest of the movie is him trying to get his revenge and get out of the prison while racing as Frankenstein. Meanwhile, there’s a subplot of Frank’s Rivalry with Machine-Gun-Joe (which is an awesome name by the way), played by Tyrese Gibson (You remember him as one of the soldiers in Transformers), who desperately wants to win the Death Race so as to get out of jail. But my favourite character has to be the Coach, played by Ian McShane (He was most recently the voice of Tai Lung in Kung Fu Panda).

Do you think what I just said above was a spoiler?
If yes, then you clearly haven’t seen the trailer of this movie. No one can spoil this movie for you… No one. It’s just impossible! You know that movie which you basically know it’s entire plot from the trailer? This is that movie!

Do you like seeing random hot girls that have no real use in movies?
I’m not talking about girls in excess like in Nip/Tuck or Entourage, but just enough to make an average guy happy. I don’t know the name of Frank’s female navigator, but I think I saw her in one of Justin Timberlake’s music videos. She’s a relatively new actress, and she’s fine as hell. She, along with the other hot navigators, has just enough screen time to make you not get bored with her presence and leave you wanting more.

Do you like senseless violence and gore?
There are a few scenes here that’ll make any lover of mindless gore smile, even if just for a second.

If your answer is yes to the last two questions, can you tolerate corny predictable dialogue in such a movie?
Enough said…

Did you like the first AVP: Alien Vs Predator, either of the Resident Evil movies, or the first Mortal Kombat live-action movie?
This movie was written and directed by Paul WS Anderson, the guy that wrote all three Resident Evil movies, and directed the first Resident Evil, AVP, and Mortal Kombat movies.

Personally, I tolerated the first Resident Evil, liked the second, and loved the third. I also loved the first AVP, but I can’t even stand the thought of the second one. OK I’m off topic…

This is the question I should have asked a long time ago…

Have you seen the WWE produced film The Condemned? What do you think of it?

If the convicts in The Condemned are not taken to a deserted island, but instead are kept within the prison walls and given modified cars with guns and explosives to race with; that will be Death Race.
Bonus question: Do you have friends that absolutely love mindless action movies?
And in case you’re wondering, yes I can tolerate a movie with no plot. No. Yeah. Hell Yeah. Probably… and Yes for the bonus question.

That being said, I loved the hell out of this movie, but I won’t recommend it to anyone. If you decide to watch it though, watch with a bunch of friends. If watching alone, just know what you’re getting yourself into.

So… Now I’m curious… What’s your rating?

The night is darkest just before the dawn…

Is there anybody out there that was more excited about this movie than I was? Maybe… but most probably not. I’ve been looking forward to another Batman movie since the credits rolled on “Batman Begins” back in 2005.

Batman is a movie that needs no synopsis, even for non-fans. But in case you are totally clueless, all you need to know is that Batman is a guy that dresses up in a bat costume and fights crime in Gotham city.

The Dark Knight continues where Batman Begins left off. Christian Bale reprises his role as Barman from the last movie, and this time he has two new villains: The Joker, played by Heath Ledger and Two-Face/Harvey Dent, played by Aaron Eckhart.

This is no doubt the most hyped movie of the year, especially with Heath’s sudden death, and I must tell you it was up to the hype, or very very close to it. There’s an Oscar campaign for Heath and I’ll tell you right now that he was absolutely amazing and deserves an Oscar, or at least a nomination. If Warner Brothers didn’t tell us Heath was playing The Joker, I swear not many people would have guessed it was him. I know I wouldn’t have.

So is this a good movie or just a good-Joker-used-to-promote-an-average movie? Good question. But an even better question is did you watch Batman Begins? Did you enjoy it? If you watch this movie, you’ll never want to watch Batman Begins again because The Dark Knight will make it look like the worst movie you’ve ever seen. I promise you.

Everyone is talking about The Joker, but Harvey Dent/Two face is equally as good. His make-up, as Two Face will blow you away, and his acting is nothing less than amazing. Everyone else reprised their role from the last movie; all except Katie Holmes which if you ask me is a good move because I felt she didn’t really belong in the first one. She is replaced by Maggie Gyllenhaal, which I love.

Director Christopher Nolan is a genius (Yes I know all the directors I reviewed are geniuses). He not only made an awesome superhero movie, but an awesome crime/detective movie. His brother Jonathan Nolan worked on the script, and since I saw Memento which the two worked on, I know that these two were born to work together.

So is there anything bad about this movie?

As another critic rightly put it,

“This movie was too long, but I’m only saying this so it seems like I’m doing my job…”

That being said, I don’t think the length of this movie is a problem at all. I mean, The Godfather ran for almost three hours, I don’t hear anyone complaining. Moreover, in most long movies, you’ll see a scene or two that can be cut to shorten it, The Dark Knight had none. It was pure two and a half hours of awesomeness!

The closing speech of the movie ended with Commissioner Gordon saying “… he’s the Dark Knight”. Then there was a black screen. It was at that time that I noticed tears rolling down my cheeks because of how lucky I felt being alive to witness that kind of cinematic masterpiece.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the first movie I’ve given 5 out of 5 stars!