Before the third and final race in "Death Race," one character says, "This could get interesting."

Really? the audience asks. Why start now?

Watching an endless string of clichés, both in the script and the direction, will do that to you. When a story is this boring to begin with, the least a filmmaker can do is come up with new ways to be tedious.

But we're dealing with Paul W.S. Anderson, the director of "Mortal Kombat," the writer-director of "Resident Evil," the writer-director of "Alien vs. Predator." He's the auteur of awful.

What does Anderson know? He knows how to jiggle the camera. He knows how to flip cars in the air in fiery explosions. He knows . . . um . . . well, actually, that's about it. And jiggled scenes of cars flipping into the air do not a movie make.

Oscar-winning actress Joan Allen must have lost a bet for her to have agreed to appear in this career-tarnishing flick. Even if it had been competently made, it still could be no better than that to which it aspires, a remake of a cheapo 1975 drive-in flick, "Death Race 2000."

As it turns out, the only way this film resembles that tongue-in-cheek, semi-satirical movie is in the title.

Allen plays the warden of a prison that sponsors auto races between its inmates. While millions of fans watch on their computers, the drivers try to kill each other in an effort to be first to cross the finish line.

Jason Statham stars as Jensen, the newest inmate at Terminal Island (the name does have a certain finality to it). He was framed in the murder of his obviously doomed wife, and we realize it long before the movie tells us that she was killed just so he would be sent to prison.

It turns out that Jensen is a talented race driver, and the warden wants him to participate in her races. A highly popular driver is killed in the opening scene, and by some amazing coincidence, he just happens to wear a mask. So Jensen can take his place and put on his mask and no one will ever know.

The rest of the movie is given over to endless race scenes that jiggle a lot and flip a bunch of exploding cars in the air.

Statham is always a charismatic presence in his movies, and he deserves better than this. But the saddest thing is seeing Allen in it. She is in such a state of shock, her forehead does not move the tiniest bit in the entire film.