Action fans can rest easy. All the trailers for The Transporter 2 promise non-stop action and mind-boggling stunts. Star Jason Statham more than delivers the goods in the sequel, opening locally today, to the 2002 original.
There's been a great deal of talk lately about finding a replacement for Pierce Brosnan for the next James Bond movie. Statham gives a dynamite Bond audition as Frank Martin, a mercenary who agrees to transport anything without asking questions.
Statham has that rare ability to smoulder, even though he's the epitome of cool - and he looks fabulous in a suit.
Unlike Bond, Frank never mixes business with pleasure.
Even when a love-starved beauty (Amber Valletta) offers herself to him, Frank resists because she is the wife of his employer, Billings (Matthew Modine).
That's one of Frank's rules and he never breaks them.
Another is that he never goes back on a promise, and Frank promises the Billings' young son (Hunter Clary) that he will let no harm come to the boy.
When the slimy international villain Gianni (Alessandro Gassman) kidnaps the boy, Frank really swings into action.
It's as if he's taking his cue from Denzel Washington's mercenary in Man on Fire.
This means Frank turns any car he commandeers into a Batmobile, spinning through traffic, bounding over other vehicles and even flying through the air.
Which is pretty much what Statham himself does when he's on foot.
Gianni may be the brains behind the scheme to infect drug-enforcement agents with a deadly virus, but it is up to his sexy assassin Lola (Kate Nauta) to remove any obstacles to success.
What Lola wants, Lola gets, and she's pretty set on laying carnage to any room she enters.
Nauta saved the wardrobe department oodles of money, seeing as she wears little more than underwear and high heels.
Francoise Berleand, as Frank's French policeman friend, provides the link to the original Transporter, as well as the comic relief for this one.
What little plot there is in The Transporter 2 is simply a device to link all the action sequences and to give fight choreographer Cory Yuen a chance to stage a dazzling free-for-all at Gianni's lair.
It's not just Statham that has an eye on the Bond franchise but also screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen, who references so many famous action set pieces and Bond villains.
The Transporter 2 may be mindless entertainment, but it definitely gets the heart pumping.
(This film is rated PG)
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