Death Race - Inferno

Let me start by stating that I loved DR1, and found DR2 a surprisingly (and unusually) well-made and entertaining sequel, even if (clearly) not of the same caliber as the first movie. As such, I admit I had fairly high expectations for this third film, although I was not hoping for anything more than just a plain, good ol'fashioned, B action fest.

What you get instead is a badly edited piece of manure that lacks coherence, but is rich in really poor and amateurish performances, stuffed with mostly mediocre (and occasionally outright pitiful!) f/x. I cannot understand how the same director (and largely same cast) responsible for DR2 could end up with this mess! Sure, most of the problems - 'snipped' action sequences, scenes sequenced so quickly and randomly that they resemble a meaningless collage of music videos, nonsensical dialogue that makes you think the actor/actress is responding to lines cut from the final product, words dropped/missing, incoherent scenes, confused camera work etc. - could be explained by a hatchet-job in editing. Still, no matter how bad the editor may have been at his/her job, it cannot possibly explain the amateurishly exaggerated performances from virtually all the actors/actresses involved, very much including Ving Rhames, Luke Goss, and Danny Trejo, all of whom have proved themselves before (to a greater or lesser extent) to be able to carry their lines and scenes rather well.

This movie obviously had a much smaller budget, and did not have the benefit of inheriting the original cars (and probably some sets) as DR2 did. It is all the more surprising, then, that the director did not even make full use of the f/x and explosions/kills that they did spend money on, oftentimes opting to cut away from them and not letting them play themselves out on the screen!(?) There are a few genuinely nice (sometimes even beautiful) shots (courtesy of the stunning desert location) a few somewhat interesting cars (though most are entirely too reminiscent of those in Fast Five) and Eugene Khumbanyiwa (the actor who played the Nigerian warlord in District 9) is as deliciously psychotic as ever - but they are the rarest of exceptions in this otherwise confused, utterly amateurish endeavour. I found myself beginning to yawn about halfway through, and could not help but feel that DR3 compares to DR2 much the same way as, say, the Nemesis sequels compared to the original Nemesis.

"More cons, more cars, more guns. Sky's the limit." Once again Frankenstein (Goss) is one race win away from freedom. This time though the race has changed. Instead of being inside the prison another man has bought the rights and is taking it global. Fighting in his crew and other deals being made make this a harder race then usual. I have to admit that I do like these movies as cheesy as they are. I loved the first one and enjoyed the second one OK. I may have to re-watch that one though because I was a little confused to start this one. I thought some of the people that were in this died and the plot lines didn't seem to match up. Then the race started and I realized that it didn't really matter, the plots of these movies are just background to the racing and violence. To me that is OK. Much like the other two this is not an award winning movie and acting is iffy at best but it is still very entertaining and well worth checking out if you have seen the others. Overall, not as good as first but fun and exciting to watch still. I liked it. I give it a B+.

In Death Race 3, the Wayland corporation suffers a hostile takeover by some very rich and evil guy, but because he's also very smart he's got a British accent. He wants to turn Death Race into an international series of races at a bunch of prisons all over the world.

Meanwhile Frankenstein is one victory away from gaining his freedom. But Niles (that's the new guy) changes the rules of the game. If Frankenstein wins, he dies. Niles moves Frankenstein and his crew to South Africa where the next multi-stage race will take place. The jail there is some sort of working mine as well.

During the first couple of stages Frankenstein indeed decides not to win, but for the final one he'll have something up his sleeve.

The races themselves are alright, we see lots of interesting scenery and the racers will have to deal with the locals as well as missiles that Niles shots at them whenever he feels like it. There are plenty of fights and lots of neat explosions, but dialogue is something the director can't and won't deal with. Not to mention that at the times the script is pretty painful to have to listen to.

This is one of those movies where at the end you get a recap of how the solution was accomplished. It's interesting but because you don't really care about any of the characters, including Frankenstein, it's almost like it doesn't matter. There is a story here, lots of action, lots of cleavage but only a split second of nudity, the director just doesn't manage to get us involved in any of it.

This is another solid five star film that is entertaining if you like this genre, which I do. It is, however, just a rehash of Death Race 2. The film setting goes international, moving the prison setting to a prison in the South African desert. The race is through the harsh & deadly desert, the prisoners are tracked with locator implants, and anyone deviating from the race's route is eliminated with a missile that tracks their implants. Similar rules and challenges as DR2 are hyped up with more, and larger, vehicles, guns, explosions, wrecks, and gore. The company knows that Goss/Lucas/Frankenstein is the reason for the high viewer ratings & magically transform Goss from a third degree burn victim with no ears or lips into 95% of what he looked like before he was burned, and he is racing again in a only a couple of weeks. The over reliance on CGI makes parts of the movie little more than modern Saturday morning cartoons. The major subplot is lots of deceptions, backstabbing, treachery, and double-crossing. No T&A shown, which should be heavily included in order fill out the testosterone driven needs of the demographic group drawn to this type of movie. You will see more T&A watching girls beach volleyball. Entertaining and light with lots of action. Enjoy!

That's as simple a title as I could give this flick. All the characters were bad but the guy playing York is simply obnoxious - and they gave him a lot of unnecessary screen time to boot!

To be sure, a lot of time and effort went into the industrial set design as well as the fantastic race sequences, but other than that, it's a movie only a knuckle-dragging, prison-living, mouth-breathing idiot would love.