Death Race 3: Inferno - Review

Death Race 3: Inferno (18)

Dir. Roel Reiné

Starring: Luke Goss, Danny Trejo, Tanit Phoenix, Frederick Koehler, Robin Shou

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

“ Let me show you what true vision really looks like.”

What do the words ’straight to DVD’ mean to you? In terms of Death Race (parts 2 and 3) which follow the big screen Paul WS Anderson remake of the 1975 Roger Corman cult classic oddity they should mean ‘stupid, violent, sexist, limited thrill nonsense’… But if you’re looking for some stupid, violent, sexist, limited thrill nonsense then Death Race 3: Inferno delivers all that and does it in more style than you might expect.

"There goes the neighbourhood!" 

This effort from B-movie specialist Roel ‘Scorpion King 3’ Reiné picks up straight away from the equally low budget, cheap-n-cheerful thrills of Death Race 2. Luke Goss is back in the lead role of Carl Lucas – or ‘Frankenstein’ as he’s affectionately known - the brutal, stunt driving star of the dodgy future televised sport Death Race. Frankenstein is your average baddie with a heart of gold, which doesn’t mean that he won’t wheel-spin on your head if gets the chance…

Part 3 sees Death Race founder Weyland (Ving Rhames) get bumped out of his own franchise by slimy suit Niles York (Dougray Scott) who dreams of taking Death Race global with franchises in every continent. To keep the show’s viewing figure s though York needs to keep Frankenstein front and centre for the audience – so he promptly ships him and his pit team off to the help launch the new Kalahari Desert Death Race.

"Fire..." 

So we get a Death Race – think Wacky Races just with guns and sexy clad female co-drivers – with added Kalahari Warlords, sand dunes and shanty towns for the vehicles to plough through. The plot creaks along – stopping for some Nuts reader friendly scenes such as one of the females taking a long lingering nude shower in the dusty prison and an all female deathmatch which sees the various babes punching, kicking, axe-murdering and flame-throwing each other to death – just to earn their place in the race. 

Danny Trejo gives good support and there is a ton of eye-candy in the shapely forms of Roxane Hayward, Charlbi Dean Kriek and the returning Frankenstein pal Tanit Phoenix. Dougray Scott does ok in the baddie role and there is some tasty vehicular action (although it doesn’t always look very convincing).

"Boom"

The extras on the disc are pretty standard stuff – but I guess it would be churlish to expect cutting edge special features from a bargain DVD premier like this.


Out of a potential 5 you have to go with a Darkmatters: 

öö1/2 – Dim-witted but intermittently entertaining nitrous boosted B movie

 2.5 – the DVD equivalent of junk food

"Tanit - back from Part 2"

"Charlbi Dean Kriek - models underware when not death racing"