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the opening sequence of this movie is so bad i nearly turned it off. high budget slop. it all starts with a driving action scene. explosions, machine guns, fire, cars speeding, crashes, all cut into a collage of partial seconds so disorienting that you'd be hard pressed to get any idea of whats going on. ultimately you learn its the end of a race and this is the do or die moment and obviously this is sci-fi because the cars are equiped with machine guns, smoke, oil slicking, napalm, etc. as well the main character we see here, frankenstien, drives with a rather menacing mask on and a beautiful girl sits by his side as a navigator. he dies but only after the girl ejects.
my problem with the first scene is not that its a bad set up to the story but the filmmakers think that a thousand cuts in a minute sequence will amp up the excitement. it doesn't. it simply has us sitting there saying to ourselves "what the hell is going on in this choppy mess" thankfully the film abandons this technique quickly and in further race scenes is a little less prone to extreme quick cuts. not that the later race scenes are good, they are only good at moments.
story: based on the original from the 70's and worked on again by roger corman, this film has little in common with the original. but lets be honest, the original wasn't much of a story either. you could argue that the script of both of these could have simply read "cars race, drivers try to kill each other....add girls." and you simply use the rest as filler around that. that being said there is somewhat of an interesting plot here although its not developed but rather used as a stand in for creating a good guy bad guy drama.
the plot centers around a driver, ames, who had won in the past (presumably not in the same context of racing). the death races are set up by a prison warden with the goal being that if you can survive and win 5 races you get a pardon. after frankenstein dies, ames suddenly finds himself set up for murdering his wife, and no surprise in the prison were the death races take place. he is asked to continue to race as frankenstein because these races are a kind of pay for view cash crop for the wardon. the race is different now. its a three part or time race (for no apparent reason). and takes part on the island that the prison is located on. its a sort've track set up through building obstacles. and more distinctly there are "power buttons" manhole cover like pads which the cars have to pass over when lit to activate different things mostly on the car; guns, defense, and a ground barrier with spikes that comes out of the ground. this is clearly a set up for a tie in game...but even so is rather limited even for game play. there is also a huge vehicle that is "introduced this race" in the second round and for what seems like to simplify the action by killing almost all the racers but the main two.
oh so anyway it becomes a vengeance thing...and of course he succeeds...duh. a few subplotish moments...nevermind.
what the movie is really about is racing, guns, and a handful of large breasted women for some sex to the equation (honestly even for how blatant this is...and believe me its blatant...they don't do it well or enough to even matter. its half-assed like everything else).
the truth be told, this is a half-assed movie. a half-assed plot, half-assed directing, half-assed action, half-assed everything...the acting is surprisingly fairly decent what there is of it. it doesn't really pretend to be anything else. and you know what...fine...its a cheap thrill and i enjoyed it. not a classic but mindless entertainment.
(6/10)
6/10
