Undescribable Perfection

Sadly Over-hyped

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Paul Bartel's "Death Race 2000" could very well be the Best B Film Ever.It has every exploitation feature necessary; everything a low-budget flick needs to be considered a classic of the genre: beautiful gals flashing a nifty amount of nudity/T&A, really fun violence, a fast-moving plot, zooming action & hilarious characters delivering their lines with great zest.Stallone's pre-"Rocky" Rocky is howl; Carridine plays it straight to perfection; B Queens Mary Woronov & Roberta Collins chew up the scenery & have a sexy blast; pre-Gopher on "Love Boat" & pre-Congressman Fred Grandy shows an unexpected side.And the three TV broadcasters, the legendary "Real" Don Steele, Joyce Jameson and little known-but-terrific Carle Bensen are a scream! It's tongue-in-cheek farce at its finest! Man, I love this movie!

In a dystopian near-future, The United Provinces (as America is now known) is ruled by a despotic president who has developed a bloodthirsty 'opiate for the masses': Death Race, a televised transcontinental car race in which the drivers collect points by killing pedestrians. As the five cold-blooded contestants battle it out on the open roads between New York and New Los Angeles, a group of political activists attempt to bring an end to the event by any means necessary.Don't be put off by the crappy opening title graphics that look like they've been rendered in colouring crayon by a ten year old: produced by movie legend Roger Corman and directed by Paul 'Eating Raoul' Bartel, Death Race 2000 is a thoroughly entertaining cult classic that no fan of drive-in/exploitation cinema should pass on. A masterclass in how to make the absolute most of a minimal budget, this fast-paced film packs a surprising amount into its tight 80 minute runtime: outrageous graphic violence, imaginative design (the customised vehicles and crazy characters looking like something out of a seriously warped Wacky Racers cartoon), wanton sleaze and nudity, clever political satire, cruel black humour, and loads of bonkers high-speed race action (the likes of which would influence George Miller on his hugely successful Mad Max movies).The film also benefits from an excellent cast: David Carradine, the perfect choice to play surly race champion Frankenstein (I came face-to-face with the actor a couple of times and he was just as unapproachable in real life); a young Sly Stallone as Frankenstein's main rival, uncouth hoodlum Machine Gun Joe Viterbo; sexy Simone Griffeth, as Frank's navigator Annie, whose stunning looks and figure would make it hard for me to keep my eyes on the road; cult favourite Mary Woronov as sassy driver Calamity Jane; and Martin 'Karate Kid' Kove, as Nero the Hero, the terrorist's first victim. With a cool line-up like that, a good time is almost guaranteed.

"Death Race 2000" seems like it was tailor-made for the midnight movie crowd. Gonzo is the word that comes to mind. You can't help but chuckle at some of the gleeful violence in such a roughly hewn movie, and the acting herein varies from wooden to cheesy (and a big draw is watching Stallone ham it up in that hair). Not to mention David Carradine in the bondage Darth Vader getup.It's all too ridiculous and that's its charm. Like watching the love child of "Cannonball Run", "The Running Man" and "Mad Max". Which really doesn't seem doable anywhere else but on paper; but here, it works. 6.5/10

I avoided DEATH RACE 2000 for a long time because I thought it would be too violent and sadistic just like the remake with Jason Statham. But I figured that since it was made in the 70s it couldn't be that bad. And it isn't. Special effects have gotten much better. The blood in the remake looks real. Anybody can tell that the blood here is fake. The violence is also quite minimal. I mean, there's a scene where a guy's head gets crushed under a car tire but trust me, it really isn't as gory as it sounds. The movie is only around 75 minutes long, which is as long as it needed to be. There really aren't any scenes that I thought were unnecessary. I really liked the story and the political commentary. The action scenes were pretty good for a movie that cost just $300,000 (around $1.5 million in today's money) to make. I still can't get over the fact that this spectacular (and I promise I'm not using that word sarcastically) movie was made for only that much money. (By the way, I didn't give this movie 10 stars for being good AND inexpensive, just for being good. I'm just saying that the fact that it was inexpensive is amazing given how good it is.)Anyway, another thing that I really liked about this movie is that it is really funny. I don't want to give any specific examples since DR2K is so short and it's best if you watch it without knowing much about it, but there are some scenes that might seem sadistic at first but really aren't. This isn't a movie that takes itself too seriously, which I really liked. Here's the thing. Every dystopian movie has an absurd premise. I can't think of a single one that doesn't. So why are they so serious? (There are maybe a few exceptions, like LOGAN'S RUN, which is somewhat serious but not excessively so.) Take THE HUNGER GAMES for example. It's so serious but, ultimately, the premise is quite ridiculous. The makers of DEATH RACE 2000 knew they were making a movie with a droll premise and apparently didn't hesitate to make it lighthearted and humorous. I thought it was hilarious how Matilda the Hun, the Nazi driver, yelled "Blitzkrieg!" every time she ran someone over. Sylvester Stallone as "Machine Gun" Joe Viterbo has some really great lines such as "You lousy stinking dirtball. You've got two seconds to live!"I can't believe that the late Roger Ebert gave this movie 0/4 stars. That was another reason why I avoided this movie for quite a long time. Now don't get me wrong, I really liked reading his reviews and I agreed with his opinions on many of the movies that he reviewed. But go read his short review of DR2K:http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/death-race-2000It's really not a review of the film itself. It's more of a criticism of movie theaters that don't enforce MPAA ratings.DEATH RACE 2000 is one of the most entertaining movies I've ever seen. You might think it's a movie that's so bad it's good but it's not. It's just good.