Death Race Blu-ray Edition
Death Race brings Jason Statham into the driver’s seat for a race for his life when he is framed for murder to drive in Death Race.
Film making 18/25
Cinematography 18/25
Audio 22/25
Bonus Features 22/25
Total 80/100
Prisons are now privately controlled; Death Race is how the company running the prisons makes money, a race where convicts can vie for the chance for freedom. Win five races and your pardon is assured, only winning those five races will not only take skill but a lot of luck.
Frankenstein is the world renowned driver of four previous Death Races and is quickly on his way to winning his fifth race, problem is he died from injuries in his last race. The warden needs a new driver to take the place of Frankenstein and can fool the world into thinking someone else is the same person because he always wears a mask in the races.
The warden of Terminal Island, Hennessey played by Joan Allen, wants to boost viewer numbers on the pay per view Death Race by continuing to race with a Frankenstein. She has a couple of prisoner’s frame a famous race car driver, Jensen Ames, for murder to get him sent to her prison and offers him the job.
He is given no choice but to race against other prisoners for the chance at freedom but in starting the first race he finds out who killed his wife and framed him for the murder. Without proof he has little chance of freedom so with the help of his pit crew, navigator Elizabeth Jane Case played by Natalie Martinez and Machine Gun Joe played by Tyrese Gibson he gets his chance.
Death Race is broken up into three stages to add to the excitement and thrills for viewers in a very video game style race that pits drivers and navigators against each other. The drivers are all men and navigators are female prisoners from a prison the same private corporation runs except for one driver, Machine Gun Joe, who only has male navigators.
The cars are souped up race cars with additional protection, defensive and offensive weapons that are enabled by the warden during the race. During the race large discs on the track will enable driver’s weapons when he runs over them as long as the warden has enabled those weapons.
First Jensen Ames, Jason Statham, has to win the race but during the first stage he finds out he will never be allowed to go free even if he does win. While this is not exactly a leap in logic for watchers of the movie it does come as a shock to Jensen and he figures a way to get escape prison.
The warden tries to use the threat of Jensen never seeing his daughter again to make him comply with finishing the race and making her rich with the profits of the race but he does not bite. In the end he uses his new found friendship with fellow racer Machine Gun Joe to escape during the third stage of the race and ends with him and his daughter living in Mexico.
I have purposely left out many events and parts of the movie, I guess you’ll just have to watch it, and many of the common and oft used prison scenes but you get the idea of the movie. Death Race is a pretty good action thriller with plenty of fiery racing scenes and video game style racing that is fun even if it doesn’t make sense.
Death Race is much like the Road Warrior type movies with plenty of gruesome and over the top violence but with a decent enough story even if it is farfetched. The movie contains all the tired old clichés you have seen from prison movies but done with at least some sense of why they added them to the movie.
There is plenty of action and it is pretty obvious why they included the navigators from the female prison for a little added thrill for the viewers as well as the prisoners watching the race. Death Race may not have the most promising actors and its story is farfetched but it is a fun action film with plenty of video game style action.
A couple of actors that are far from promising are of course Jason Statham as well as Ian McShane who plays Coach, the crew chief of Frankenstein’s car. Coach has been eligible for parole for three years but says he doesn’t want to get out, all he knows is prison. Ian McShane plays a great prisoner/crew chief who has the gritty toughness needed for an old timer in prison.
Death Race the Blu-ray edition comes with the two versions of the film, the unrated and the theatrical release as well as plenty of bonus features. The usual picture in picture commentary and some good additional content during the film plays with the U Control feature called Tech Specs like car features and race track areas to give you more information about both.
There are some bonus features like a making of and how they do several of the stunts that is neat but that about wraps up the entire additional bonus features for most of us. One feature you may want to play around with, those budding producer/director types, is a filming sequence were you can control the camera view during one part of the race called Create Your Own Race. Another feature you can play with is the My Movie Commentary where you add commentary using audio, video or text to your movie using enabled Blu-ray players or a PlayStation 3.
You also get the bonus digital copy to watch on your computer with the Blu-ray edition for a pretty complete entertainment package. While the Video Commentary and the Create Your Own Race do not work perfectly they do work and shows some of the innovative features that may become more readily available in the future for more movies.
Death Race is one of those odd movies with a pretty weird story that is very unbelievable, a very standard set of action sequences and some very predictable characters and events that is actually pretty good. Death Race is one of those films that despite all its short comings is fun and a great movie in the end, the Blu-ray edition does give you plenty for your money.