Critics Scoreboard
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Average Critic Score:
43
(24 sources)
43
(24 sources)
-
80
The New York Times
The movie is legitimately greasy, authentically nasty, with a good old-fashioned sense of laying waste to everything in sight -- including the shallow philosophizing and computer-generated fakery that have overrun the summer blockbuster. Read Full Review » -
75
New York Post
Statham is an essential tough guy, what the Brits call "well'ard," as self-assured as Lee Marvin. Read Full Review » -
75
TV Guide
It honestly delivers the goods without all the preachy moralizing about violent entertainment and cultural ruin. Read Full Review » -
75
Chicago Tribune
Nothing in director Paul W.S. Anderson's schlock drawer--prepares you for the peppy, good-time nastiness that is Death Race. Read Full Review » -
70
Salon.com
Statham moves with such easy grace that you don't have to work hard to believe him. And if he can stand up to Joan Allen, melting her predatory stare with his own molten gaze, then it's clear he's not just the prettiest guy on the prison block, but also the toughest. Read Full Review » -
70
Time
Though the picture doesn't deserve to appear on any critic's 10-best list, it observes the minimum standards of modern action films, which is to say it looks smarter, talks sassier and moves faster than almost anything else on the market. Read Full Review » -
67
Entertainment Weekly
Soft sexual and racial jabs replace the more daring political commentary of the original, a crude classic from the Roger Corman factory. Read Full Review » -
67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
This new version has absolutely none of the distinctive tongue-in-cheek black humor that was the keynote of its model and the trademark of its original director, Paul Bartel. Read Full Review » -
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Death Race is our unshaven Brit hero's inevitable comeuppance: The Prison Job. Read Full Review » -
63
ReelViews
This movie is about mayhem on wheels, tough guys viewers can root for, and villains whose comeuppances audiences crave. That's what Death Race is all about and, for what it is, it does a solid job. Read Full Review » -
63
Boston Globe
Smartly, Anderson makes some eclectic casting choices that keep the story from feeling as though it's populated by video-game characters. Read Full Review » -
60
Empire
It's nothing more than an enjoyable, ridiculously macho B-movie romp, but it's derson' best movie since the underrated Event Horizon. Perhaps, at long last, he' starting to find his - yep - top gear. Read Full Review » -
58
The Onion (A.V. Club)
It's the perfect end-of-summer film, and a sign that summer needs to end soon. Read Full Review » -
40
The Hollywood Reporter
The best you can say about the movie is that it isn't boring. It's fast-paced, but it isn't really well made. Read Full Review » -
38
-
30
Washington Post
It isn't so much a movie as a superheated, highly conductive miracle substance for the pure transmission of masculine aggression and misogyny. Read Full Review » -
30
Variety
As hard as metal and just as dumb, Paul W.S. Anderson's Death Race couldn't be further from producer Roger Corman and director Paul Bartel's goofy, bloody 1975 original, "Death Race 2000." Read Full Review » -
30
Chicago Reader
Paul Bartel's "Death Race 2000" is a beloved camp item, but this slick, loud, violent remake is pitched at the video game crowd. Read Full Review » -
30
New York Daily News
Well, you've got to say this for Death Race: It knows what it is and doesn't apologize for it. What it is, incidentally, is junk. Read Full Review » -
25
-
20
LA Weekly
With its inexplicably watchable shotgun-riding bimbos, unconscious homoeroticism and "Shawshank Redemption" ending, The Fast and the Frivolous here is almost so bad it's good. Almost... Read Full Review » -
12
Chicago Sun-Times
It is an assault on all the senses, including common. Walking out, I had the impression I had just seen the video game and was still waiting for the movie. Read Full Review » -
0
Austin Chronicle
Anderson has neutered the original film's outrageously transgressive macadam mayhem and completely stripped the story of its pointedly political social satire, making this Death Race one of the most boring drags of all time. Read Full Review » -
0
Baltimore Sun
Here's hoping Allen's static Hennessey is due to an extreme acting choice and not plastic surgery. It would be tragic to lose a natural smile to star in garbage like Death Race. Read Full Review »
You Say
click on a star to rate
