It’s the year 2012, the prison systems that was once run by the government is now being run by privately own corporations that now use the prisons for their own gain. Terminal Island is the prison own by The Weyland Corporation that has the inmates go into fights to the death called Death Match. Only now the ratings are going away and the  company is losing money making the show one with a short future. Once Carl "Luke" Lucas (played by Luke Goss) is arrested for bank robbery and gets sent to Terminal Island allowing the host September Jones (played by Lauren Cohan) to come up with the idea for the show Death Race. If the drivers/inmates win 5 races they win their freedom. With the help from the pit crew, Goldberg (played by Danny Trejo), List (played by Fred Koehler), and Rocco (played by Joe Vaz), Luke can use his skills as a driver to win his freedom along with his co-pilot Katrina Banks (played by Tanit Phoenix). Though he won’t have it easy when his former boss Markus Kane (played by Sean Bean) puts a million dollar death mark on his head making everyone in the prison gunning for him.

When the first movie came out back in 2008 and I had enjoyed it and when I had heard recently that there was a second one coming out I figured it was going to be a copy of the first, only with different actors. Actually though, ‘Death Race 2’ is a prequel to the first movie that explains how the death race started and the origins of the driver “Frankenstein” that was in the first film. Even with this being a prequel there are still portions of the movie that are the same that was used in the first film. This can’t be helped because it is a second movie after all but with it explaining how the first movie got to that point the use of the same ideas can be overlooked.

Now, just because I can overlook the idea of ‘Death Race 2’ using some of the same ideas from the first film I can’t overlook how the scenes are executed in the movie. During all the race scenes it looked as if I was watching the first movie again, only this time it was edited with less skill, from the fast cuts, to the bad camera angles, and poor acting that is involved, I didn’t get excited over watching it. This is supposed to be a movie that is full of action with adreneline rushing sequences that makes the watcher get all pumped and psyched out. I wasn’t either of those, just mildly curious as to how they were explaining the origions of ‘Death Race’ and “Frankenstein”.

Funny thing though is at the start of the movie there is a sequence showing the making of a mask where I was thinking to myself that it looked familiar to me. That little moment in the movie is meant to be what it is, saying hey look this is the prequel not a sequel. From there it starts with the introduction of Luke and how he goes to prison and then showing the ‘Death Match’.

These fights scenes were horribly to watch. Kicks and punches don’t even look like they are connecting and when some of them are slowed down it just made it laughable not intense. Then have the acting that looked like it was being forced out by the actors at times and other times it seemed like it was their first time doing a movie, I wasn’t impressed with what I was seeing. Danny Trejo can be a hit or miss with his acting performance and in ‘Death Race 2’ it’s a miss. I don’t get why his character started to like Luke or what his character was able to survive in a prison where everyone else was getting killed off by someone else. Not only that but there is his prison friend, List, who I never heard why he was in prison to begin with.

‘Death Race 2’ uses all the typical formulas to making action race movie from the fast moving sequences, the big movie style fire ball explosions when the cars wreck, and the beautiful women that seem to appear out of nowhere. There is a lot of action in this movie, there’s blood, and there are a lot of explosions that while they are only mildly entertaining, they look amazing when watching it on my HD TV off the Blu-Ray. Picture quality is so clear and impressive, more so than the acting and action moments are, even the darker scenes are clear without having noise in the picture. Even the sound level is good on this Blu-Ray. When there is dialog I was able to hear and I didn’t have to turn the volume up or down when there was an explosion. Though as impressive as the way the movie looks the actual movie itself is just mildly good enough to make for a one time watching when not wanting to use the brain and wanting to see some mindless violence.