300c in a bad ass movie

[The Gunslinger]

First off the bat, Death Race is pretty terrible and cliche'd. The races are no doubt spectacular, but then so was the action in the remake of RollerBall.

The cars are fitted with foam and fiberglass 'armour', else they'd weigh about nine tonnes each. To quote the Street Machine interview "The SFX guys did a really great job. The cars look fantastic... you have to walk up and touch them to tell it's fake." I'm going to wait until this one's out on DVD to check it out.

For the 70's car movie fans, check out Death Proof. It's Quentin Tarantino's tribute to 70's car movies like Vanishing Point. The beginning is a bit slow, but it steadily picks up pace for the climax, a twenty-minute long car chase between a 1970 Dodge Challenger (with a 440 Magnum engine and a white paintjob; yes the Vanishing Point car) and a 1969 Dodge Charger.

Oh, and it has Kurt Russell in it, back to his roots playing a total badass.

EDIT: Wound up seeing Death Race. Not as terrible as I predicted. It doesn't get bogged down in the backstory and keeps the plot moving smoothly (which is a major plus), but falls back on shaky cinematography, ultra-closeup shots and quick cuts to cover for relatively mediochre action sequences.

Okay, I'll give it this, there are some spectacular shots (the Dreadnought's crash and Frankenstein's wreck in the intro in particular) which are notably crystal-clear for viewing (long shots, no camera shake). It's like the SFX guys had some great ideas and then fell short when thinking of how to pad out the races between major stunts.