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Bah, I was hoping for a faithful remake. Instead we get The Condemned with cars. I was going to say The Running Man, but there's no kitsch or camp. I dig Jason Statham, but where's all of the fun and political lampooning?! Sure, there's the whole "this is where media exploitation is headed" angle, but again, that's what The Condemned was all about! After watching Speed Racer, I can't help but think the Wachowskis should've been given a real Death Race remake and the studios could've just called this movie 2 Fast 2 Condemned...  :hatred:

Yeah, they kinda f'ed up the premise.  I mean, the original one was a tongue-in-cheek commentary about how America has been desensitized to violence.  Hell, the original rings even truer today than it did back then.  I was hoping for a grittier version of the original.  They got the grit down but convicts killing other convicts?  That's not even close to what the original was about.

Now, I know it's a remake and I know there's no law saying that you have to do it exactly like the original.  That being said, the makers of this monstrosity completely missed the point of the original.  I was hoping for a David Caradine or Sylvester Stallone cameo as the President or something.  Instead, it's Twisted Metal: The Movie.   :lookingup:

That's the sad part: it doesn't even have twisted/interesting characters like Twisted Metal does. Same old generic "good guy who we'll find out at one point was set up for the death of his wife but didn't really do it because he's the hero and heroes would never do something like that" lead who will no doubt win the "race" before the evil warden behind it all attempts to have him killed anyway, only to be killed herself before Statham and his female convict navigator/new girlfriend drive off into the sunset...

And worst of all? You just know there isn't going to be a hand grenade in this one.  :hatred:

Another movie that looks like a cross between a music video and a video game.  Great.

Yeah, you know it would have been great if they had every racer sponsored by 100 different companies.  And the announcers could say something like "This kill was brought to you by Varos Cookies"...see I came up with that myself and it's still way better than what they actually come up with.

I agree with you except for this part. I'm a huge fan of Roger Corman, but I believe you're giving the man a wee bit too much credit.

Studio: "Hey Rog, I have this film I want you to make. It's about how America has become desensit..."
RC: "Will it have things blowing up?"
Studio: "Well, yeah, but I want you to make it a commentary on..."
RC: "Think we can get Stallone?"

With all due respect...
The Twisted Metal franchise kicked ass on almost every level.   :thumbup:
I'm going to give this one the benefit of the doubt and probably see it.

The question we're all asking ourselves is how badly Paul Anderson f***ed this film up.
He's well known for changing the original source material and angering fanboys everywhere.
But this looks to be a somewhat decent flick with the machine guns mounted on cars and whatnot...

I have enjoyed some of his films such as Mortal Kombat and Soldier so I know he's capable.
Hopefully he's made this an enjoyable flick and inserted homages to the original.
(he better have)

I absolutely love the original Death Race 2000.  When I heard that Anderson was making a remake, I was actually a bit hopeful.  A modern DR2000 film would be completely kick ass.  After seeing Speed Racer, with it's vehicles being obviously influenced by Death Race, my hopes had been set high.  Maybe, just maybe, Anderson would make a great remake.

Apparently not.  While this film does honestly look like a ton of fun, I'm disappointed in the direction they went with the story.  No more points for hitting pedestrians apparently.  I'm sure I'll check it out in the theater but damn this trailer disappointed me.

I'm curious how the studio pulled the talent on this one.  Statham is a given in a film such as this, but Joan Allen and Ian McShane?  Seriously?  They are ones you normally see in more high brow flicks.  Must have been a hell of a payday.

That trailer actually looks pretty fun, I'll have to check it out when the DVD hits the bargain bin, which I'm guessing will be about two weeks after it's released.  I never liked the original at all, a bunch of silly cartoon cars and David Carradine in black leather underpants, good grief.  I hate social commentary in movies, comically simplistic "ideas" shoved in your face with all the subtlety of a 2X4 upside the head.  And since everything Hollywood turns out these days is one gigantic social commentary, I can certainly do without it in this movie.

I had to LOL when that car slid sideways into those spikes and just stuck there.  :teddyr:  Eh, hot babes, cool cars, good enough.  I'm sure Anubis is totally right about the plot, and it's Paul W.S. Anderson so it may be even stupider than that, but it looks to be the type of thing where you don't expect much more.  I'm just glad it's not starring Vin Diesel.

I'll see it, but probably hate it. The original one was a great movie, and the new one doesn't look anything alike. If nothing else, the navigators are hot.

The thing about the original DR 2000 is that it took social/entertainment trends of the day and projected them forward to some rather fanciful but uncomfortably accurate results.  We are pretty living in the world of DR 2000 in many more ways than just the calendar.

But that was at a time where many movies were taking that approach; especially Sci-Fi.

That requires a lot of introspection and forward thinking.  Which is not really a mark of modern movie making.

You would need both the desire and the ability to take today's trends and project them forward 30 years or so....and I just don't see a project being green-lit in Hollywood today.

Is this an actual remake or just a borrowed idea? There's no Frankenstein, no Mr. President, and no pedestrians. I guess there's no way the idea could be pulled off in today's movies since anything even close to mocking the US is labeled "BAD!". I'd say that's what the country needs, a sign that it's okay to be loose.

Wow, they really need to stop giving older B-movies  modern Hollywood budgets.  It looks... ho-hum.  I honestly feel like they could have just called it Twisted Metal: The Movie and have Uwe Boll direct it and it would work out about the same. 

But yeah, it does feel like The Condemned with cars. 

at least its not uwe boll

That's what made the original so good: it didn't really have any big point to make. Corman just figured out what enough people would be willing to pay a little money to see, and gave them that as cheaply as he could. The social commentary came from the viewers.