As expected, “Death Race” offers viewers gratuitous violence and then more violence, until they perceive blood, gruesome deaths and explosions as downright boring.

“A little less conversation, a little more action” – is the film’s short description.

If you want a longer description, well, we have Jason Statham in the role of an innocent man who is sent to jail for murdering his wife. The film’s background is in 2012, when the U.S. economy has collapsed, corporations are running everything, and society has evolved so much that its source of entertainment is violence involving machine guns and napalm and usually leading to death.

Statham’s character, Jensen Ames, is given the opportunity to reunite with his baby daughter. If he wins a ridiculously violent race, he is a free man. So he drives his car looking worried, furious, annoyed, depending on the situation. And being mostly silent, except the grunts. No fun, no clever lines, no humor. That’s all.

The remake of producer Roger Corman and director Paul Bartel’s 1975 classic “Death Race 2000” drops all the fun elements in the original film. The satire and camp are replaced by fast cars, destroying machines, special effects, resulting in an empty action movie. Paul W.S. Anderson, the director of video game adaptations such as “Resident Evil” imagined the classic thriller as a video game that becomes real, with convicts chasing and killing each other to obtain freedom.

Of course, the action movie recipe would not be complete without a perfect pretty action team. So Ames gets a very sexy female convict navigator to assist him in the race. He is also helped by old-timer Coach (Ian McShane) and his main rival is Machine Gun Joe, played by Tyrese Gibson.

The jail’s ruthless warden is played by an icy Joan Allen, who performs one of the worst roles of her life. It’s not her fault though, but the script’s.

The film is Rated R for violence, gore, language and mature themes. See it only if you are into films that keep your adrenaline up…