everything about this feels wrong. it's mean-spirited, ugly, and devoid of fun. the previous movies were trashy in that they had no higher aspiration beyond silly, gearheaded, popcorn entertainment. the first one rode on the muscular charisma of jason statham and his brooding glare. the sequels managed to do okay with luke goss' b-movie charm, and at least a dozen wacky supporting characters between them. this one is trashy in that i feel like i gotta take a shower now, and i didn't really even finish it. i will, later, and amend my review if the rest of the movie manages to change my opinion, but holy shit. this movie is just nasty. in its dunderheaded efforts to... make death race edgy again(?), they manage to fuck up the tone beyond repair. instead of goofy, self-aware sex appeal, this just seems sleazy and uncomfortable. instead of high-octane, mad max-esque violence, this has more shared dna with the uber-grunge sadistic stylings of a saw sequel. in the opening scene, frankenstein has lured a swat team into a trap, wherein the team is shot to death by a crowd, and then a squad of chainsaw-wielding butchers comes in to hack their corpses apart. frankenstein then grabs one of the severed heads, and dramatically flings it away for the cameras. nothing in this scene has anything to do with racing. it's just disgusting. tonally it is alien to the rest of the franchise. in the other films, the villains were always part of the establishment- cops, jailers, ceos. now frankenstein is the villain? and he's a sadistic tyrant who lords over a mini-wasteland, controlling the whole thing? racing feels like an afterthought here. the novelty of the gun-strapped cars and wacky racers has been muddied in the extreme. the appeal and the logistics of the concept seems lost on this movie, which feels like it was directed by a bunch of slipknot groupies. the lead protagonist is boring as hell, has zero charisma, and looks like he's either falling asleep or stoned in every scene he's in. one fan of the movie on here, gave it around four+ stars, said that this movie was great(!), loved all the female nudity, wish there wasn't that one shot of "man ass", and that he was especially glad it didn't have any of the "gender politics" of mad max: fury road. that... is this movie's target audience, ladies and gentlemen. i for one, do not count myself among them.