Death Race 3: Inferno

Death Race is a great movie. Death Race 3: Inferno is not. There were multiple times when I was watching this that I wished I hadn't wasted my time. The concept is still cool, and there are a few enjoyable moments and lines, but not nearly enough to make up for the painfully terrible acting.

Death Race, I wish I knew how to quit you. I thought I was going to get to see The Illusionist (animated one, not Edward Norton), but the library didn't have it in stock after all. I was frustrated enough about that to just watch Death Race 3 without doing any research on it. Death Race was a great movie, and all I remember about Death Race 2 was that it sucked. The trailer for Death Race 3 looked promising, so I gave it a shot.

That turned out to be a mistake. The acting was so bad it was downright painful to watch. The star, the navigator, the villain, practically every actor in the entire movie was terrible. Danny Trejo, Fred Koehler and Ving Rhames were fine, but that's about it. There were actually a few good lines, but most of the writing was terrible. The driver introductions were totally flat; no info about the driver at all, just a flashy picture with their name. They did have a couple interesting drivers; I actually felt sorry for all of them when they died, which wasn't a good direction to go.

I guess because Luke Goss sucked so much, I really didn't care about Frankenstein, and I wasn't interested in him beating the other drivers. So much of the movie made no sense. Why were the prisoners always allowed to tell all the guards to leave? Why was Katrina randomly washing the floor by Carl's cell?

It was an interesting idea to have the race in the desert, in the open, through villages. I liked how the stuff in the cars was all just duct taped together; it gave it a "prequel" kind of vibe. The ending with everybody happy and the villain being Frankenstein was good. I thought they were setting it up for more to happen with the secretary, especially when Niles said she knew everything about him, but I guess not.

There were multiple times when I was watching this that I wished I hadn't wasted my time on it. The very few redeeming qualities it has aren't enough to make up for the terrible acting. They really need to stop torturing us and end the franchise already.