Metacritic reviews

It’s all ridiculous and occasionally surreal, but Bartel never loses sight of the unpleasantness; when these cartoons explode, they don’t get to place any more orders with the Acme company. They just die.

As a genre picture, and as a nugget of pure unadulterated cult entertainment, Death Race 2000 is one of the best around.

A distinctively crass, hugely enjoyable sick satire from director Paul Bartel, working for uber-producer Roger Corman – allegedly, Bartel kept thinking up more and wilder jokes, while Corman insisted more and more people got run over.

The All-American imagery, coexisting with occasional shots of swastikas and socially-sanctioned cruelty, give it the feel of a surreal, funny fever dream about national purpose gone horribly awry.

Death Race 2000 isn’t the sharp satire Corman thinks it is, but it’s fun.

Death Race is a maladroit but exuberantly gamey mix of social commentary and blue-collar goofiness.

Overall the movie isn't as synchromeshed as it might be; the rivalry between champions Carradine and Stallone isn't very interesting, and some of the gags aren't sick or funny enough. But it's a great audience film.

Superior drive-in exploitation fare.

In the end, it reveals itself to have nothing to say beyond the superficial about government or rebellion. And in the absence of such a statement, it becomes what it seems to have mocked—a spectacle glorifying the car is an instrument of violence.

I was torn between walking out immediately and staying to witness a spectacle more dismaying than anything on the screen: the way small children were digging gratuitous bloodshed.