There, I finally got around to putting this review together. Death Race 2000 stars some really funky cars, like Hanna Barbara's Wacky Races or some such. They have teeth and knives and guns, or caricatures thereof. These are used to run over people in the cross-country (LA to LA, judging from the scenery) race. On purpose, for points.
We get some commentary from goofy TV personalities, like Old Guy, Overly Friendly Female, and Scary Druggie. They provide a lot of exposition, like how many points babies are worth, how Frankenstein is a "close, personal friend of mine", and which racer just drove off a cliff through a giant ridiculous fake tunnel entrance. Scary Druggie is fun to watch, because he is like a 70's clown, and is always incredibly excited by the slightest thing, if he found a penny on the floor, he would explode like a bucket of sheep filled with TNT.
Our hero (I guess) is David Carradine, played by Frankenstein, a mish-mash of human parts cobbled together after a gazillion accidents he's accrued through the years of racing. His experience and fan base is enormous, and so was the simile I was cooking up. That's his car, it's kinda cool. Is he a bad guy? A good guy? I don't really care if you ever watch this movie, but I won't ruin his story line for you, just in case you smoke a lot of pot and want to watch this movie while dropping acid and shooting up reefer. (I guarantee everyone in the movie production was, except Stallone, he hadn't even started on steroids yet.)
See?His character's name is too stupid for me to remember, but he's a thug, or perhaps a hood. I forget. He slaps his girl around a little, and shoots a tommy gun blindly into a cheering crowd. A little like Rambo, I guess. He may be second favorite to Frankenstein, but he's a bigger star. Also, he has guns. I'm not talking about his arm muscles there, because I'm not sure he had them there.
The President of the United States lives on a pyramid, I guess, and nobody knows where. This may indicate a post-apocalyptic setting, but I can't tell the difference between the setting here, and really early Rockford Files. He acts kind of religiously, like the Death Race is a rite or something. He provides some exposition again, and some a plot point, but don't expect this to be clever like Ultraviolet!
The gaps between legs of the races is filled with horrible, horribleness. Oompa Loompa cameramen run around with toaster ovens strapped to their backs, and David Carradine stomps around like a leathery Darth Vader, and the female racers take their tops off gratuitously.They have the complexion of Miss Piggy.
Thank God Miss Thomasina Whatsit does not remove a single article of clothing! She leads the resistance, which is comical, and attempts to sabotage the race by killing racers and airing her Weirdness on TV in protest. She makes speeches and eventually becomes the fascist she pretended to fight against. Just like Republicans.
The crescendo, if you will, is when the resistance brings in awesome air support in the form of this here aeroplane. It's pretty badass, except the whole scene put me right to sleep. I'm pretty sure an ambulance was there to for some reason. The president blamed the aeroplane on the French to conceal the fact that the resistance somehow got an aeroplane past security and is trying to kill people by boring them to death. There is a bunch of plot, like Thomasina's daughter is in there, David Carradine has a handgrenade, and the twist ending which hits you really fast and gives you no time to savor what the hell just happened.
It's a great idea, just hampered by such things as the 70's, no budget, and thinking gratuitous nudity and gore can make up for not knowing how to make talkies. And probably drugs.
