Death Race 3: Inferno (2013)

Elevator Pitch: Carl Lucas, aka Frankenstein, is one race away from his freedom in the death race, but the franchise is purchased by enterpeneur Niles York, and the whole  crew tranported to the South African desert where the competitors are stamped with a location device to stop them runnng away and then released to race on a course through the desert. There are gates through which they pass to activate their weapons. Gradually their numbers are reduced as they eliminate each other, and sometimes are killed by rockets fired by the management. But Niles York is determined that Frankenstein will not win.

Content: The navigators are all young women sexily clad. There is a bit of nudity and implied sex. The navigators are forced to fight each other for their place in the race. There is some interaction by the management in the control room, but mainly the strange off road vehicles get out there and dash about on the dusty track shooting at each other with a variety of weapons, resulting in many crashes and the deaths of the driver and navigator. It seems not to have occurred to the organisers that the weapons can be used against them.

A View: This was a straight to video outing apparently costing $6 million. Up to now I have quite admired Paul W.S. Anderson’s ability to get a story out of the most unlikely material, but he failed utterly in this case. The drama is stilted, the dialogue and acting are atrocious and the races themselves just don’t make any sense. People shout a lot and there are many scenes in semi-darkness, neither of which I like. Fortunately I was watching it on video, and so was able to take a rest, but my advice would be not to bother. I am making it an ALMOST DON’T SEE.

Additional Info: Despite the fact that Den of Geek quite liked it, it has not been voted up much by the viewers on IMDb.  However there is apparently a Death Race 4 out there somewhere.