Showing posts with label Death Race. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Death Race. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Death Race Decision

OK I saw it. I was right about what I thought it was going to be, and actually kind of wrong about it sucking. It was a fun movie with great stunts, and there was plenty of gratuitious violence in it to kind of keep it in line with the original. But it was also missing a lot. The other drivers are all essentially different stereotypes of what a thug from each race would look like. That's it though, it's entirely looks and entirely tame. Play up the stereotypes until they're ridiculous, have the characters throw hissy fits, give us something absurd!

I don't really want to make a habit of movie reviews so I won't give you more of one than you just got, but I'd suggest this: forget it's called Death Race. Remember the live action Mario Brothers movie that was (somewhat) dark and gritty. They did the same thing to Mario Kart!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Death Race Disparity

Many folks don't turn on the TV much these days so I feel it's demonstrating.

There's a Death Race remake coming out this Friday. It's starring Jasan Statham, who I guess is about as B-Movie as it gets these days but why, why would you slaughter my sacred cow? Why would you hand it to Paul W.S. Anderson, who has already slaughtered Alien and Predator in one fell swoop? Who keeps giving this guy a budget?

Now behold the Roger Corman classic. Apparently this remake was originally backed by Corman but had to go through multiple rewrites until it became what it is now.

The question is who wanted this? Anybody that's seen death race and likes it enough for a remake would obviously be disappointed by this new version, why keep the name?

Also see 

Note in the remake, the earth does not appear to be standing still, rather EXPLODING. The original was about a space ambassador warning that we would be destroyed IF we continued to use nuclear weapons. No explosions! Just tensions! The slow sci-fi movie has been dead for ages now, but does it have to be a disaster movie? From checking out the wikipedia, the director absolutely loves The Day The Earth Stood Still and sought to modernize it with a more relevant message to today (because nuclear weapons are no longer a threat or something). So the new message is "mankind has been found to be a danger.... AGAINST ITSELF AND NATURE." How long did it take to come up with that because surely it's never been used in any other sci-fi movie, let alone any that Keanu has been in