Death Race is an action film written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson. The film is a remake of the 1975 film Death Race 2000, based on Ib Melchior’s short story "The Racer", and stars Jason Statham in the lead role. The remake had been in development since 2002, though production was delayed by disapproval of early screenplays then placed in turnaround following a dispute between Paramount Pictures and the producer duo Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner. Death Race was acquired by Universal Studios, and Anderson re-joined the project to write and direct. Filming began in Montreal in August 2007, and the completed project was released on August 22, 2008.
The film has received generally poor reviews from critics. It currently holds a 40% "Rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a rating of 41 out of 100 on Metacritic.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film half a star (out of four), calling it "an assault on all the senses, including common."Keith Phipps of The Onion’s A.V. Club said the film is "ideal for those who want to watch a bunch of cars blow each other up, without having to think about it all that much."Robert Koehler of Variety called Death Race "as hard as metal and just as dumb" and criticized it for removing the humor of Death Race 2000.[14] Marc Savlov of the Austin Chronicle called Death Race "one of the most boring drags of all time."[15]
Peter Hartlaub of the San Francisco Chronicle called the film "an ill-advised and severely wussified remake."Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News gave the film one and a half stars (out of four), calling it "junk" and saying that "the chases are pretty cool, but there’s absolutely nothing else to see."A positive review came from Nathan Lee of The New York Times, who said that "the movie is legitimately greasy, authentically nasty, with a good old-fashioned sense of laying waste to everything in sight." James Berardinelli of ReelViews awarded Death Race a score of two and a half stars (out of four), saying that it’s "weak when it comes to things like plot, character, and acting, but it’s very good at provoking visceral reactions."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Race
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