Death Race: Inferno

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!

"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+.

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.

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.

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.