Death Race 2 movie Review

Good morning everyone and welcome to another movie review. Last night I watched the sequel...or prequel...not sure which, to the 2008 action film remake of Death Race. This one stars Sean Bean, Ving Rhames, Tanit Phoenix and the debut of the character of Lists played by Frederick Koehler who is in the 2008 film. Also you have the return of 14K played by Robin Shou from the 2008 film as well.

Now my first question when I started this movie was "why is Sean Bean in this movie?". Now the reason I sequel or prequel is because its hard to tell. It is called Death Race 2 but it actually takes place before the 2008 film. The idea of the movie is that Carl Lucas (played by Luke Goss...who is the star but billed sixth for some reason) is a thug who works for Markus Kane (Sean Bean) blows a bank job and ends up in prison. Kane, who runs a major crime organization needs him dead. In the prison they have what they call "Death Match" which is really a mix between UFC, American Gladiators and the old Roman Gladiators fights where two men walk in and only one walks out. I won't say anymore about the plot but I think you get the idea.

This movie was one of those where I thought "How long is this? It has been going on forever" and it was only a half hour in. However the second half was quicker. To me the only people who come off looking decent were Ving and Sean, big surprise huh? Luke Goss was HORRIBLE in this. I mean horrible. He came off as a poor mans poor mans, or third generation copy, Jason Statham. He was probably cast because he kinda sorta looks like Statham. But honestly his performance might be one of the worst ones I've seen in a long time in a film. After a little research into Mr. Goss I saw nothing on his resume to make me think that this was just a fluke performance and he is actually better than this. I don't mean to come down so hard on Mr. Goss but he really made the film quite a bit worse and brought it down. Honestly I think my fat ass could have done better. Sorry Mr. Goss but you were horrible.

With Mr. Goss's performance aside I enjoyed the flick as Kevin Smith would say. Is it a master piece like say Saving Private Ryan of course not. I knew it was going to be a dumb action flick with bad dialog and probably decent to action segments. If you enjoyed the first one or want to know how Death Race (the fictional game show in the movie's universe) its worth watching. If you want to watch a stupid action flick watch this. If you want something amazing I would avoid this one. If I had to give a rating probably 1.5 out of 4. If there was a better star it would have gotten higher but as I said Goss just sucked everything out of the film. Much like the late Andrew Martin (Pro Wrestler Test for those of you who don't know) he was the black hole of charisma in the movie.

Until next time guys. Remember, its a new dawn and its a new day.