DIRECTED BY: G. J. Echternkamp
FEATURING: Manu Bennett, Marci Miller, Yancy Butler, Malcolm McDowell
PLOT: In a dystopian future, drivers compete in a cross-country race where the competitors score points for speed and vehicular homicide.
WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Aside from being the fifth film to bear the Death Race marque, the 2050 incarnation is a pretty straightforward race picture, with some absurd gore and strident satire glommed on for extra measure.
COMMENTS: The title card identifies this movie properly as Roger Corman’s Death Race 2050, and when you get to be 90 years old and won an Oscar just for the sheer volume of your output, then you’re damned right you get to throw your name up there. But now that he’s put himself front and center, it’s important to remember that a lot of Roger Corman movies are bad. When we think of filmmakers like Jonathan Demme, James Cameron, or Ron Howard getting their start in Corman’s low-budget film factory, the context is that they are all talented filmmakers who overcame humble origins. Death Race 2050 does not manage to outshine its pedigree, whether that be the Corman exploitation mill, the shadow of the original Death Race 2000, or the many films from which it liberally borrows. In that sense, it’s a fitting addition to the Corman canon.
Allegedly, Corman instigated the idea after a journalist suggested that his original Death Race had much in common with The Hunger Games. Evidently, he opted to solidify the connection by carrying over as many elements of The Hunger Games as he could legitimately steal, from the bread-and-circuses atmosphere to the preening chief executive to the destitute-man’s Stanley Tucci who emcees the whole affair. But it owes just as much to the rock-stupid future depicted in Idiocracy, to say nothing of the original Paul Bartel film, whose beats are carefully replicated here.
Ostensibly the tale of a fallen America’s favorite bloodsport, Death Race 2050 pits five cars against each other in a race across a country that is largely free of people, presumably because they all remain indoors to enjoy the race from their squalid-yet-VR-enabled homes. Given how many of the remaining citizens wind up dead at the hands of the racers, it’s hard to tell whether reality TV is the ultimate killer, or the only thing keeping our descendants alive.
As for the racers themselves, one is a robot car susceptible to brain damage, while two are stereotypes (a black nationalist rap star whose hit song consists almost entirely of the poetic lyrics, “Death Death Kill Kill”, and a fundamentalist Christian televangelist who proudly builds her pulpit on terrorism). That leaves two for our primary showdown: Jed Perfectus, the probably-gay prima donna with a chip on his shoulder who struts around practically naked (he has a spectacular chin, but beyond that is not exactly a flawless specimen), and Frankenstein, the world-weary champion who is pretty much annoyed with everyone. Overseeing all of this is Malcolm McDowell, honing his accumulated phoning-it-in skills with a barely-trying American accent and a floppy hairdo that might remind viewers of another arrogant leader who cons the public and suffers from narcissistic personality disorder.
The writers want to have fun with the rampant commercialism that has destroyed the country (the best such joke is this wonderful location card: “Washington, D.C. [formerly Dubai]”), but the humor is paper-thin. For every joke that carries a little weight if you stop to think about it (i.e. the aerosol cheese that’s also a mood stabilizer), twice as many are simplistic (the new American flag replaces the stars with dollar signs), depraved (a passenger literally has sex with the robot car), or low-hanging (fans drink paint-can-sized beverages labeled “Zoda!”). The film is aware of its limitations (a conversation between two women takes place in “The Bechdel Lounge”) but helpless to overcome them. Characters switch sides just because, abandon long-held beliefs just because, and generally do whatever is required to get them to the next jokey part of the country.
But you’re not really watching Death Race 2050 for its Thurberian wit, so who cares as long as there’s some thrills in this Death Race? Which turns out to be an even bigger problem: no one believes for a minute that these cars are going faster than 30 mph, even fewer will imagine that these actors got anywhere near the steering wheel, and most of the carnage consists of bloody entrails being hurled at windshields. When you aim to combine satire and action, and don’t really score on either count, you’re setting yourselves up for disappointment.
Death Race 2050 wants to be a few different movies, but doesn’t really score at any one of them. As a result, it’s never actively bad, but not particularly good, which makes it very disposable as entertainment. Fortunately, there are four other Death Race films you can try.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
Fine review — no doubt the closest Roger Corman has ever been associated with James Thurber. That said, I hope the latter’s estate doesn’t come after you.
P.S. : (From Chris Alexander’s review snippet) Does anyone know when (and why) “genre film” came to be a term for “weird movie”? I know that a review included with “Dellamorte / Dellamore” talks about that whole “genre crowd” in comparable terms.
I don’t think “genre film” is a synonym for “weird movie,” at least not among critics I know. But a lot of weird movies share genre characteristics (and are frequently lodged firmly within the horror genre), so they tend to overlap, either celebrated or ghettoized as “cult movies.” And, to be honest, when I tell the average person who tends to restrict their movie diet to realistic drama, dimwitted comedies, and Marvel blockbusters that I review “weird” movies, they almost always think I mean horror and sci-fi—we’re so far off the radar screen that most people don’t even realize weird movies exist. They frequently get angered by them when they encounter one by accident in the wild (see the reaction to The Tree of Life).
The term is somewhat unfortunate — like saying one watches “‘type’ movies” or “‘category’ movies.” Regardless of the connotation, it’s a poor choice of descriptor. The hallmarks of “genre films” I’ve read about seem to be rather slippery principles — some seem to think the term refers exclusively to “B” movies from the mid 20th century (or films that can be interpreted as throw-backs to such things).
Perhaps they fall under Justice Potter Stewart’s remarks on pornography: “I know it when I see it.”
Critics once used “genre film” to indicate “less-serious” types of populist movies they think stick to a set of conventions—as if realistic dramas or biopics or costume dramas or classic literary adaptations or politically conscious films or identity cinema don’t stick to conventions. The term is not as pejorative as it was a generation ago; appreciating “genre” is in vogue since Tarantino. “Weird” films are by definition almost the opposite of “genre” films: they rely on breaking and ignoring conventions.