Death Race 4: Beyond Anarchy (2018)

I own this movie on DVD.

(spoilers for Death Race 4... but really spoilers don't matter here)
Death Race 4 is, I'll at least say, a good step back up from the horribly bad Death Race 3.
the timeline and movies get a little confusing here as it wasn't till after I watched this I learned there was Death Race 2050 (which was not included in my DVD Box Set) that was made between Death Race 3 and 4, however is not part of this timeline and is actually a sequel to the original Death Race 2000 from 1975. So even though 2050 was made after Death Race 3, this movie Beyond Anarchy, is actually Death Race 4. Also Beyond Anarchy is a stupid terrible name.
Anyways, Death Race 1 and 2 were pretty good, but 3 was a terrible bad film. Death Race 4 doesn't quite live up to the first two movies, but it is at least much better than 3. However still lacks a lot to be desired. The opening of the film is full of characters spewing the clunkiest exposition dumps I've seen in a movie, and we are introduced to our new hero who we don't really have any reason to care about. While Statham and Gosss form the previous 3 films, we were shown their life outside of Death Race, their stories, love life, and history with other characters so we can care about them and it has stakes... this new guy we are told nothing. In fact they make it a sort of half haphazard twist that he's actually working for like the CIA and sent in to kill the new Frankenstein but it's such a throw away moment it doesn't effect the movie what so ever. It's not even worth giving a spoiler warning.
They did try to do something interesting, by having Frankenstein be the "villain" of this film. However that's a very wasted plot point that they could have had much potential with. Had they brought back Statham or Goss to be this evil Frankenstine, that would have been a great twist. Instead. We never ever know who this Frank actually is. Who is he? what's his story? how did he get the mask to become the new Frank? Why is he in charge of this prison city now? why is his mask different and looks more like a Predator mask now? we're never told anything about him. And when he's killed off at the end with the main character taking his place. It's an empty moment, with no pay off.
we have a hero we don't care about, defeating an enemy we don't know or care about, and they swap places to end a movie in a spot we don't care about.
And the way they had the same hair, the fact that the hero (I think his name is Gibson), would take Frank's place at the end was telegraphed so hard.
And again the other races introduced in this movie are barely there to serve anything more than to have people die or wreck in the race itself, and we get even less character development than in 3... and 3 barely had any!

still though, that said, this movie is more enjoyable to watch than Death Race 3 and I give this one a 5 out of 10... actually the more I talk about it I'm dropping that down to a 4.5. so don't bother watching Death Race 3 or 4. 1 and 2 are good. And I still need to see Death Race 2000 and 2050.

Mistake Status: I plan to do the Death Race franchise for mistakes at some point. Including all 6 films and even Death Racers from The Asylum as a bonus.

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