Experience It Live in VR

So far we’ve seen two different versions of the Death Race concept. The first was 1975’s Death Race 2000, a tongue-in-cheek, Roger Corman-produced, low budget sci-fi dystopian film that honestly feels ahead of its time. Yes, it played in the same pool as other dystopian films, like Logan’s Run and Rollerball, but it also very much knew how silly it was. The silliness was part of its charm. It made the film friendlier, easier to get into. And then, when it had something to say about politics, government, and the state of America, it went down smoother. The film could get to its audience in a way other dystopian films of the era couldn’t, and it worked. I really enjoy the film, both for how dumb it is as well as for how smartly it’s constructed.

Later, in 2008, we got Death Race, Universal's reboot of the film, and it was a much dumber movie. It’s pretty clear that the studio liked the idea of taking Roger Corman productions, like Death Race 2000, so they could put their own spin on the material (see also: The Fast and the Furious). But the reboot loses all the dystopian charm of the original, having far less to say in the process. It’s a bigger, dumber movie but nowhere near as charming in any way, shape, or form. And yet, despite this, it somehow spawned three continuations of the story.

Corman, though, was never one to let a good idea go to waste. If Universal could make money remaking one of his films, why couldn’t he? Thus was born Death Race 2050, a sort of sequel, sort of remake of the 1975 original, with all the cheese and bombast that film had. Because it’s kind of a sequel, you know about what to expect from the content: a bunch of drivers bring their crazy cars into a race across the country, with the last man standing winning the whole contest. But because it’s a reboot all the details of the previous film can be ignored. It’s a new (old) story told in a new (old) way, all for the glory of the thrill of the race.

The year is 2050 and it’s time for the next annual Death Race. As introduced to us by the hosts, J.B. (Charlie Farrell) and Grace Tickle (Shanna Olson), this is the first time the race is presented in full VR, with the audience able to be part of the action right from the position of the various navigators. Each car in the race had two members off the team, the driver and their navigator, and no driver is more famous that Frankenstein (Manu Bennett), the most successful, and longest winning, driver in the whole circuit, much to the chagrin of his chief rival, the genetically engineered superman, Jed Perfectus (Burt Grinstead).

Starting in the ruins of old New York the five driving team – Frankenstein, Jed Perfectus, hip-hop artist Minerva Jefferson (Folake Olowofoyeku), far right cult leader Tammy "The Terrorist" (Anessa Ramsey), and the AI-driven supercar ABE (D.C. Douglas) – have to make their way through the various states of the Corporate Union, while racking up points by driving over pedestrians, all before getting to Los Angeles for the finish line. It’s every man, woman, and robot for themselves as the Death Race takes flight. But driver beware, there are reactionaries out in the wilds of the U.S. ready to stop the drivers and end the race, once and for all.

As a basic level, Death Race 2050 tries, but never quite succeeds, at finding the right tone to be a proper remake/sequel of Death Race 2000. It certainly has the campiness, and the humor, and the drive to be as silly as possible. But it’s also a cheaper and less well constructed film, lacking a certain verve that made the original film feel fresh and interesting. It’s the standard issue with a copy-of-a-copy that so many sequels struggle with. You can’t replicate the original, especially when you’re attempting to do it over forty years later with a completely different team. The people that worked on Death Race 2050 try but never truly succeed.

In fairness, they do have a lot of amusing, bonkers ideas. Jed Perfectus is one of the film’s greats, a shallow and vain man that is supposed to be the absolute best of us, genetically engineered to be a superman. But he also has a crippling inferiority complex, in part because he just can’t beat Frankenstein, and it drives every rash decision he makes. Jed is an interesting, amusing, tragic character and the film does a decent job of fleshing him out and making him a character you can hate. He’s very well done.

On the sillier side of things there ABE, the AI car. His scenes are amusing as he slowly malfunctions, going right off the deep end into an existential crisis over what he is, why he feels, and how he can be a car and not a man despite all that’s going on in his brain. It’s both deep and tragic but also played up for laughs, showing that, at times, the film did understand its balance. This is the kind of character that could have existed in the original film simply because he works so well in this weird, distorted universe.

Sadly other characters don’t come together nearly as well. Minerva Jefferson is amusing in theory, a rapper-turned-racer who became popular over her his singer “Drive Drive Kill Kill”, but despite attempts at the film making her deeper or more interesting, she never feels like more than a joke. The same is true for Tammy the Terrorist, who should play as a scathing send-up of the religious far-right, but her whole concept never really gels together in any way. She’s a cartoonish villain, not someone you can actually invest in at all, either to love or hate.

There’s also the group of dissident reactionaries, led by former network exec Alexis Hamilton (Yancy Butler). Like in the original film, these dissidents want to end the race and, in the process, end the power that the Chairman wields over the country. This is great, in theory, especially as it ties into Frankenstein’s navigator, Annie Sullivan (Marci Miller), but the group never feels like it finds its strength. They aren’t really a factor in any of the events of the film, never feeling like a threat to Frankenstein. We also never understand what they’re really after. Do they want to overthrow the U.S., or just depose the Chairman? Without understanding what they want we can’t care if they achieve their goals or not. They’re underbaked and never deliver.

But the biggest failing comes from the character that should be the true heavy of the film, The Chairman of the United Corporations of America, as played by Malcolm McDowell. I like McDowell but he can only do so much with an incredibly underwritten character. The Chairman is designed as a send-up of Donal Trump, with this film having come out near the beginning of his first presidency, and from a certain perspective you can see what they were going for. Vain, pompous, and controlled by the corporations, this character should have been a slam dunk. But because he’s so far removed from the race we simply never care about what he’s doing in the film. Cutting away to him feels like filler for the movie as it’s never an essential scene. He bloviates, nothing he says has any effect on the race, and we move on. He should have been a major motivation, but instead you could effectively cut him out of the film and lose nothing.

But if you cut him out then what is the film even about? Nothing, and that’s the big issue. Death Race 2050 wants to be a cutting look at the sci-fi dystopia America could be headed towards, but it doesn’t really have a message or understand how to convey it. Instead of biting and sharp, Death Race 2050 feels dull and sanded down. I like some of the characters, and the film is silly enough to hold my attention, but it lacks the sharp commentary and interesting adventure that the original film has. It’s a diluted, less impressive copy of the original, making it a film worth watching only once to see how far a sequel can fall from the original. Pretty far, as it turns out.