Summary
A woeful vehicular actioner dumped on Netflix when it seemed like nobody would notice, Børning 3: Asphalt Burning is an utter waste of time.
Well, it certainly didn’t take long for Netflix to give its many detractors some ammunition this year. On just the second day of a new epoch, one that we were all hoping couldn’t possibly be worse than the last one, arrives Børning 3: Asphalt Burning, the third in a series of Norwegian automotive actioners that has nonetheless been marketed as a standalone entry titled, simply, Asphalt Burning. Sly, Netflix, but there’s no fooling me – although I watched 100 minutes of this, so perhaps there is.
Plot-wise, there’s nothing to write home about. The ostensible “hero” is the unlikely-looking badass racer Roy, a man with neither the face nor the name for protagonist duties in this kind of thing, but nevertheless, here we are. After risking his relationship with beau Sylvia in a mountain race, he has no choice but to travel to Germany and run the famous Nürburgring in an effort to win the day and the girl. On the way, he’ll encounter other men named Roy, and we’re to understand this is somehow hilarious.
I must confess that I have no idea what Asphalt Burning is really about, who it’s for, what the tone or genre is supposed to be, or why anyone thought it would be acceptable to build the vehicular stunts out of PS2-era computer graphics. Is it intentional? Is the joke that it looks this bad, or that none of the gags or set-pieces work? If so, it’s not a particularly funny or clever joke, is it?
Look, I get it, it’s January, and despite all the good it does Netflix does indeed have issues with quality control. Every now and then any old garbage will slip through the cracks, and Asphalt Burning absolutely exemplifies that tendency to just dump nonsense among the thumbnails and hope nobody notices. Unfortunately, it’s my job to notice. Maybe this year isn’t shaping up particularly well after all.
