The Rise of Frankenstein

After the sad travesty that was Death Race, you wouldn’t expect Universal to be too keen on the idea of making a sequel. And technically you’d be right, for several reasons. If Death Race had come out in the last couple of years it would have been considered a flop ($87 Mil made on a $50 Mil budget is a flop by any measure) and then forgotten without a second thought. But when it was made in 2008 DVD was still king. People loved home media, and any film that could make a franchise was worthy of secondary consideration. Death Race might not have been successful in theaters, but with its mix of dumb action, Jason Statham, and a plot you didn’t have to think too hard about, it did reasonably well on home video, and that was all the excuse Universal needed.

But, also, follow-up film Death Race 2 isn’t a sequel. In point of fact, it’s a prequel, following a character that would eventually become the Frankenstein we’d eventually see, briefly, at the start of Death Race. Yes, it is strange that the company decided to put out a prequel but give it a sequel’s numbering and that, among many other decisions, makes this a really weird film to pay attention to. But it is still a Death Race, so you know exactly what to expect: stupid people, stupid action, and overall just a lot of stupidity.

Except, here’s the thing: while Death Race was terrible, with action that was nigh unwatchable, this prequel is actually a lot better. I wouldn’t go so far as to actually call it good, but with a mix of decent actors, more focus on a real plot, and a director that isn’t quite as terrible as Paul W.S. Anderson helming the project, Death Race 2 does what I would have considered unthinkable: it actually was watchable. I sat down with my wife to hate-watch this film just to get it over with and by the end of it we looked at each other and said, “was that film actually fun?” Yes… and I’m annoyed by it.

Death Race 2 follows Carl "Luke" Lucas (Luke Goss), a getaway driver and known associate of criminal kingpin Markus Kane (Sean Bean). Although the favored man of Kane, that all changes when a bank robbery goes wrong. Luke ends up shooting a cop just to help his buddies escape, and then he goes down for the crime after letting his accomplices escape. The DA’s office offers Luke everything they can to get him to turn against Kane, but he never does. Instead he’s tried and convicted and sent to Terminal Island, home of Death Match, where he can spend his days bathed in blood and violence.

Kane, though, doesn’t trust that Luke will keep his mouth shut, so he puts a bounty on the man’s head, available even to the prisoners on Terminal Island. And while that’s going on, show promoter September Jones (Lauren Cohan) is trying to find a way to spice up Death Match, her cage match-in-a-prison show that is steadily losing audience. A bit of inspiration strikes her and she realizes that if they switch from fighting to vehicular combat they could refresh the audience and get a whole new share. And the grudge that people have against Luke just might get the race format the hook it needs…

If we’re honest, Roel Reiné isn’t that much better of a director than Paul W.S. Anderson. While his camera work is better, and he doesn’t seem prone to direct every film like it’s a video game, I’d call his directing style workmanlike at best. It’s very flat, very basic, not at all flashy or showy. It gets the job done, but this film wasn’t going to win any awards for direction, ever. I’ll still take it over whatever the hell Anderson was doing on the first Death Race, but we’re still talking bottom half of the barrel at best when it comes to directing.

And this is especially the case with the action. The fighting in the cage matches is okay. It’s not that great, and there are plenty of points where you can clearly see an actor pull a punch and miss their target, making it all look really goofy. Still, it’s not overcut and edited all to hell, so that’s a bonus. The vehicular scenes, though, are once again unwatchable, and they take up the entire back half of the film. Over-edited, filmed too close, with a bunch of cars that all look the same, it’s impossible to ever get a real feel for the car combat. The film loses some steam right when it should have been building to a climax. It’s just not where it needed to be.

The film is largely saved by its cast of actors. While Luke Goss isn’t great, feeling very bland in the lead role of Carl Lucas, the rest of the cast is really solid. You have generally great heavy hitters in small roles, like Ving Rhames and Sean Bean, adding gravitas to an otherwise silly script. You have solid character actors, such as Lauren Cohen and Danny Trejo, who can take bad material and at least make it fun. And then there’s returning actors from the first film, like Robin Shou and Fred Koehler, who at least understand their characters well enough that they can slip into the action and feel right.

Nothing about this film is good, mind you. While I like the actors, no one here is doing their best work. This was clearly a pay check film, made on a budget, with all the great actors coming in for a couple of days to film all their scenes back-to-back before jetting off to make a real film. It’s done on a shoe string ($7 Mil for this film in comparison to $50 Mil budget for the film), and it looks so much worse. Sets are cheap, direction is cheap, action is cheap. It’s all very threadbare and obvious, like a high school production of a Death Race film.

And all of it is strung together on the loosest of plotlines. Kane doesn’t trust Lucas to stay quiet, despite the guy never once giving him any reason to doubt his loyalty, so he makes his own problem just to kill a man that doesn’t need to be killed. That goes on while a show is being produced at the prison, and the two halves never really fit together. It’s a shaggy story with too many parts that doesn’t ever bring itself to a full and complete whole. You want everything to mean something and it never does.

Then the film just ends. While no specific plot threads are left dangling, it also stops right before a climax for the main characters can really be achieved. Lucas dons the Frankenstein mask and becomes a new person, but that’s only the first step of his journey. He didn’t technically win any matches (in the first film he’d already won four) and we still don’t have a sense of what he really wants out of all of this. He’s a character still working on his journey, not one that’s reached the end. Yes, there is a further sequel, Death Race 3, but a film should be able to stand on its own and Death Race 2 does not.

And yet, despite this, I did have fun. I think the cheapness of the film, the shittiness of the production, actually made me enjoy it more because it wasn’t trying to be more than it is. Much like with Death Race 2000, the cheap production values become a feature, not an issue, and the film is better for it. Is it a good film? Absolutely not, but because it can’t really be good it then at least tries to have fun, with stupid action and plenty of good actors chewing scenery. When you don’t have a lot, make do with what you’ve got, and Death Race 2 at least does that.

Which is why I’m annoyed by the film. It’s bad, in most respects, and it doesn’t even have a satisfying ending… and yet I also enjoyed it when I watched it. It tickled my lizard brain and let me have some fun. For a cheap, shitty film that was more than I expected, so I can’t hate this film. I just can’t recommend it because it is objectively bad on every level. It’s bad, but fun, so it’ll appeal only to the select movie fans that can live with that. If you can, well, maybe give Death Race 2 a try.