This is the first in what will hopefully be a series of reviews of B-movies I loved as a kid. The idea is to re-watch said movies and discover whether they are truly entertaining, or whether they have lost their charm during my whole growing-up process. The first of these little gems is a racing flick from 1975, which I saw on Showtime some years after that. If you think you might actually want to watch Death Race 2000, beware: there are spoilers ahead.

Before I begin, I just have to say that it took me about one minute after pressing "play" to realize that this movie kicks serious ass. It's that ... good.

Death Race 2000 tells the story of how, in the year 2000, after the Great Collapse, our great nation is held together by a cross-country auto race in which racers score points by running over pedestrians. Different types of pedestrians are worth different amounts. Senior citizens, for example, are worth 100 points. Teenagers are worth 40 points. Toddlers are worth 70. As race wisdom would have it, "If everyone scatters, go for the baby and mother."

The racers are a flamboyant lot, with character gimmicks much like pro wrestlers. There's Calamity Jane, with her bull-shaped car. There's Nazi-esque Mathilda the Hun (from Milwaukee), and her nerdy navigator, Herman the German. There's Nero the Hero. But the man to beat is Frankenstein, played by David Carradine. Frankie got his name because he's been in so many wrecks. He "lost a leg in '98, an arm in '99 ... With half a face and half a chest, and all the guts in the world, he's back!" The only real competition Frankenstein faces is Sylvester Stallone's character, Machine Gun Joe, who dresses as a '20s gangster and totes a Tommy gun.

Each of the drivers has a navigator of the opposite sex, because the relationship between driver and navigator is not only professional, but sexual. All the navigators are hot, except for Herman the German who is a real Poindexter. In a gloriously orchestrated plot complication, we learn that there is a rebel group who opposes the race (and the nation's leader, known only as "Mr. President," who heavily supports the race). The rebels have infiltrated the race and placed one of their own, Annie, as Frankenstein's navigator. Annie must somehow thwart the race from within, while not getting blown up and killed by one of her own group's saboteurs.

For me, the best part of the movie occurs early on, when the racers are lining up at the starting line. Many of the fans are cheering for Frankenstein, which angers Machine Gun Joe, whom the fans generally despise. Joe stands up in his car, grabs his machine gun and screams in true Stallone style, "You want Frankenstein? I'll give you Frankenstein!!" then proceeds to randomly fire his machine gun into the crowd.

But not only is there plenty of senseless and gratuitous violence, there's senseless and gratuitous nudity as well. At the first pit stop, all the drivers and navigators get "rub downs" from extremely buff and attractive members of the opposite sex. The nudity and sex is just as hilarious as the violence. You haven't lived until you've seen David Carradine seductively unzip his jumpsuit.

The whole movie is hilarious, really. I mean, for Christ's sake, one of the jokes is blatantly lifted from The Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Show. Watch for it--it's a classic.

It's an obvious statement that Death Race 2000, like all good science fiction and all good satire, predicted the future somewhat accurately. The connection between the Race and reality TV ("You can't call off the race! The American people won't stand for it! The race is a symbol of everything we hold dear! Our American way of life! Sure it's violent! That's the way we love it! VIOLENT! VIOLENT! VIOLENT!!!") is the first to come to mind, but there is also the spin the government puts on the race, and the terrorist organization, led by Thomasina Paine, that wants to stop the Race and restore the "United Provences of America" back into the United States. Rather than admit that some people think the status quo is wrong, Mr. President goes on air and blames the "the treacherous French." He raves, "It is no coincidence, my dear children, that the word sabotage was invented by the French!"

Hmm...

But who cares about high-falutin' interpretations, anyway? You get to see a fistfight between Kung Fu and Rocky. And that's what really matters.

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