Death Race review

Ok, I am going to try to get through two posts today. First will be a movie review of Death Race. Then I am going to try to explain the basics of Battlestar Galactica (because I am a dork) in order to try to convince you that I am not really that big of a dork. We will see how far I get.

So first off, Death Race. Not to be confused with Death Racers, which also came out in 2008 but was a straight to DVD B movie starring the Insane Clown Posse. (I only know this because it came up when I Wikipedia'd Death Race. Really. I promise. Ok, so Death Race is very loosely based on the the 1975 Death Race 2000 starring David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone in which a the death race is a cross country sporting event where pedestrians are killed for extra points. In this movie (set in 2012 US after the collapse of the country's economy) the overcrowded prison system (sound a bit prophetic?) has been privatized and in order to make money one prison has started a television car race in which inmates try to win their freedom and kill over inmates. That is pretty much where the plot development ends and is all given as text before the start of the movie. Well there is one other plot point, that actually makes the movie a movie, but giving it away would give away the movie. I HIGHLY recommend this movie under the conditions that 1) you are not at all beholden to to such movie constructs as "plot", "character development" or "basis in reality". 2) you are at all interested in seeing an incredibly jacked and (at least in the unrated version) naked Jason Statham OR in seeing scantily clad hot women. 3) you like or at least are not adverse to car racing and blood, gore and violence. I am really serious about recommending the movie though. We saw it at Dan's almost-biweekly movie night this week on Blu-Ray on his big fancy TV, with surround sound. So maybe that helped. But it was a fun time, a good movie to watch with friends. Maybe I should start a rating system. Well, for now, let's just say, highly recommended for a thoughtless action-movie evening. Not at all recommended for the light of heart or those people who think that all movies should have a developed plot.