La course à la mort

Slang-bang, moving sequel with plenty of action and amusement . It is a grindhouse pleasure that will appeal to saga lovers due to a lot of action, thrills, chills and emotion. It is set in a nearly future, there in South Africa develops the ultimate sporting where contestants get score point for running drivers down, a futurist international sport with plenty of violence in which pilots contend for hitting other vehicles. Meanwhile a powerful organizer : Dougray Scott buys the broadcasting copyright of the violent competition to Ving Rhames, as the car race is televised by pay per view and presented by a beautiful host called Satana. As Frankenstein/Luke Goss is given a new opportunity to have his reward. As he is attempting to survive the dangerous and bloody competition by pitting other nasty drivers to get his purports.

This is a nail-biting sequel with lots of noisy action, violence, fights and breathtaking car crashes. It is a high-octane fantasy thriller and another routine follow-up, repeating similar premise than previous sequels. As we have the skillful driver Luke Goss accompanied by a gorgeous co-pilot, Tanit Phoenix Copley, participating at the stirring and amazing race, contending with other heinous and ominous participants. It is made in brainless and rudimentary masculine fashion, filled with macho men and sexy, bomb-shell girls. Stars the tough and two-fisted Luke Goss, he is assisted by a passable support cast as Dougray Scott, Danny Trejo, Tanit Phoenix, Frederick Koehler, Robin Shue, among others.

The film written, produced by usual Paul W. Anderson, was professionally made by Raoul Reine, though with no originality, being a simple rip-off similar to former entries. Here Reine doesn't reach nowhere the satirical impact and playfulness of the original film. The Dutch Raoul Reine has directed various acceptable films, such as : The Admiral, The lost tribe, The bear, and several sequels and remakes such as : Hard Target 2, The condemned 2, The man with the iron mask, 12 rounds 2, Seal team eight, Redbeard , The Marine 2. He also directed a grean number of Tv episodes in the popular series as Black sails, Knightfall, Redball legend, Inhumans.

The film is based on the original Death Race 1975 by Paul Bartel/Roger Corman with Sylvester Stallone, David Carradine, Simone Griffith. Followed by Death race 2008 by Paul W Anderson with Jason Statham , Tyrese Gibson, Joan Allen, Jacob Vargas, Natalie Martinez. Death race 2 by Raoul Reine with Luke Goss, Tanit Phoenix Copley, Lauren Cohen and followed by this Death race 3. Death race 2050 with Manu Bennett and Malcolm McDowell. And Death race : Beyond anarchy 2018 by Don Michael Paul with Lucy Arden, Nicholas Aaron.

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.

I just wanna open by saying I hate people who don't judge content by context, and in context, I thought this film was pretty sweet. Yes, there is the continuity problem and some extent of continuity problems- but come on, its a death race movie. Of course Death Race is crap if you judge it by normal movie standards, but death race is death race, man! And while this third installment wasn't a masterpiece, it still delivered enough entertainment for me to go "that was worth it". There's also that ending which, while some might say are cliché or cheesy or "Hollywood endings", I personally thought was awesome. Minus the ultra- numerous plot holes and impossible Hollywood stuff that happens because entertainment conflicts with realism, plus the constant bitching from Danny Trejo and Tanit Pheonix about friendship and deceit is really cheesy and annoying and cheesy and annoying, the only problem I got with this film is that Fred Koehler annoyed the crap outta me with that god awful character "Lists" and the things Lists says which is, as I mentioned before, annoying. However overall, this is a nice finish for a Death Race trilogy, if you bothered to see the first two you might as well see this as well. And yes, let's hope they don't make Death Race #4.

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.

Luke Goss returns from the second film as the heroic convict in a future world where prisoners must race each other to the death (with the world tuning in on PPV, natch). He replaced Jason Statham's character (who clearly has better things to do) thanks to a convenient gimmick. Both of them raced under the handle "Frankenstein," wearing a metal mask supposedly hiding their hideous facial injuries. The gag comes from the Roger Corman original, but it holds up well, and we accept Goss as our new go-to guy with only a minimum amount of plot exposition.

They also find a new hook for the race itself, after a corporate sleazebag (Dougray Scott) buys the company in charge of the whole thing. (Ving Rhames shows up to collect a check as the former owner, supposedly outfoxed in a subplot that no one need pay any attention to). Goss's Frankenstein soon finds himself shipped off the South Africa, home to a new Baja-style Death Race that the company eagerly wants to use him for. His pit crew Lists (Fred Koehler), Goldberg (Danny Trejo) and Katrina (Tanit Phoenix) come with him, and soon find themselves embroiled in the usual intrigue surrounding the race. The end of the film sets up has an attempt to make another Death Race film.