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Review: There's not much steam left in "Scream 3." Even so, this final chapter (they swear) of the smarty-pants slasher series manages to wheeze its way across the finish line, wrapping up the trilogy in satisfying fashion.

The setting now is Hollywood, primarily the film studio where "Stab 3," based on the Woodsboro murders of the first "Scream," is being shot. But production shuts down when actors start winding up dead, knifed by the latest psycho wearing the familiar ghost costume. Enter dirt-digging reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox Arquette), who runs into estranged beau Dewey (David Arquette). The former lawman has moved to Los Angeles to be technical adviser on the new film. He's also gotten cozy with Jennifer Jolie (Parker Posey), the actress playing Gale in the movie-within-the-movie.

The catty relationship between Cox and Posey is the film's best gag, especially when it results in giving us two versions of the relentless Gale.

Meanwhile, our much-stalked heroine Sidney (Neve Campbell) is living in heavily alarmed seclusion in one of the city's leafy canyons, though the killer (whose toys include a very sophisticated voice modifier) is trying to track her down.

As with the other two movies, the less you know about the plot, the better. This one continues to treat mass murder as an extension of show biz, a bloody game whose rules come from horror movies. We even get a beyond-the-grave cameo from video geek Randy (Jamie Kennedy), who explains the anything-goes nature of the final part of a trilogy: The heroine can die, the killer is almost superhuman, and secrets from the past will erupt.

That means the movie plunges back in time to give us a complex back story and a truckload of knotty exposition that ultimately gives the killers of all three movies a motivation stemming from the same source. As for the superhuman strength of the killer: This freak can blow up houses and take on a whole room full of people at the same time.

The new movie isn't as clever with its clues as the others. It's easy to guess, if not the killer's name, then his connection to Sidney. The script tries to keep us off the scent by throwing in a bunch of new faces and possible suspects: Lance Henriksen as a longtime horror film producer, Patrick Dempsey as a moody detective, Scott Foley as the director of "Stab 3" and Matt Keeslar as the actor playing Dewey.

"Scream 3" gets off to a shaky start, resorting to Hollywood in-jokes and pop-culture references. These were novel in the first "Scream," but after only three years, it's a worn-out and much imitated device, threatening to tip the first hour of the new flick beyond self-parody and straight into farce. Wes Craven directs again, but series creator Kevin Williamson had to bail out on the script because he was overextended on other projects. The chore went to Ehren Krueger, who lacks the Williamson snap.

The first half of the movie stumbles with a standard-issue action scene, as an anxious driver speeds his sport-utility vehicle through Los Angeles gridlock, causing vehicular havoc. And a couple of female stabbings seem gratuitous and by-the-numbers. But once the plot gets going — and the movie brings the sequestered Sidney into the action — the flick gets better. It's fun to see Gale, Dewey and Sid interact with the actors playing them in "Stab 3." The movie also gets energy from a couple of well-placed cameos.

You may expect the persistent life-vs.-movies motif to develop into something interesting, elevating "Scream 3" to a new level of smart self-awareness. Mainly it's just window dressing, though it pays off in the killer's explanation of his (or her?) actions. It's a Hollywood in-joke that ends the "Scream" movies not with a whimper, but a knowing laugh.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service