It probably doesn't speak to how well a "three-quel" in a kick-butt action series such as Transporter holds up if you find your mind wandering to questions such as the following:
Frank "The Transporter" Martin (Jason Statham) ostensibly has three rules -- no names, never change the deal and never look in the package. And yet somehow he manages to break at least two of those rules "just this once" in every movie.
Why didn't this occur to me before? Could it be I was just too ... what's the word I'm looking for here? Oh yeah, entertained!
To say that Transporter 3 is the weakest of these highly effective, modestly budgeted action flicks is not a damning indictment. There's still plenty of destruction, and Frank is still a one-man army, not least of all when he's surrounded by thugs wielding lead pipes and he, of course, reduces them all to states of unconsciousness in two minutes or less.
This is, however, the talkiest of the series. It's interesting that -- as much as the Bourne and Transporter series are said to have insinuated themselves on James Bond's evolution -- Transporter 3 falls prey to "Bond Girl" syndrome. In this one, the cargo is Valentina (Natalya Rudakova), the blabbermouthed sex-kitten daughter of a Ukrainian politician named Leonid Vasilev (Jeroen Crabbe). Leonid is leading a "revolutionary" world environmental effort, but has run afoul of evil corporate gangsters who want the freedom to dump boatloads of toxic chemicals anywhere they want to, just like God and Adam Smith intended.
It's funny that this is the first action film I can think of that hinges on garbage disposal.
By now, Frank seems burned out, and routinely turns down "transporter" jobs. That is, until the psychopathic "Johnson" (Prison Break's Robert Knepper) knocks him out and rigs explosives to his body that will detonate if he gets more than 100 feet from his beloved BMW. As peril-situations go, it's not exactly Speed. It just means you have to be extra careful to find a good parking spot. Meanwhile, Johnson can't seem to make up his mind about where Frank should be going with Valentina. He's headed to Budapest then Stuttgart then Odessa. And every time one of his gunsels questions an order, Johnson shoots them. This happens a lot with evil villains, I notice. How do they keep finding staff?
Add to the mix a gang of presumably Ukrainian government agents, also out to stop Frank by any means neccessary (the script by Luc Besson is vague on details).
In any case, all that inane chatter from Valentina detracts horribly from what is supposed to be going on in a Transporter movie -- mayhem. It's there, as I say, but watered down with a love interest and scenes of awkward and badly acted "tenderness" ("If I am to die, I want to have one last time the sex") that haven't been a hallmark of the series to this point.
Let Bond fall in love and be driven by things such as remorse. Frank Martin has got his car to love.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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