REVIEW: Transporter 3
Transporter 3 (15) Directed by Olivier Megaton
Vroom vroom crash bang wallop… Frank 'the transporter' Martin (Jason
Statham) is back in the third all driving, all fighting , all macho nonsense Transporter sequel, delivering crazy car chase action that makes the Top Gear chaps look like a bunch of Sunday drivers.
To date the Transporter movies have been slick, brainless, breathless action flicks – so can the momentum be maintained for another high octane trip or is the franchise finally running out of fuel?
Alas, the smooth - and I don't just mean his bald head - Statham is hamstrung in this latest outing by the fact that we've just about everything on offer here before, and it was better last time...
The set up is achingly familiar, dubious characters hire Frank to drive a package somewhere at high speed, there's an obligatory hot female (Natalya Rudakova) along for the ride and a host of baddies who'll try and stop him.
Unfortunately no amount of Audis jumping onto moving trains, mass brawl fist fights or proximity bombs attached to body organs can overcome the crunching law of diminishing returns which bites hard here.
Transporter 3 somehow manages to be stupid in the extreme and yet still take itself far too seriously.
Writer-producers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen seem content to serve up mildly reheated plot leftovers that not even Statham's patented Bruce-Willis-alike smirk can make watchable.
New director Olivier Megaton couldn't be less aptly named as Transporter 3 barely raises the pulse rate and delivers nothing very explosive.
Also new is rubbish baddie named Johnson (Knepper) – a strong last minute entrant to nab the 'weakest villain of the year' award from that unthreatening bloke from Quantum of Solace.
The dastardly plot is something about blackmail grubbiness to do with environmental policies and shiploads of toxic rubbish, which serves as an unfortunate but workable analogy for the film as a whole.
One old face is back on duty but with very little to do except spout obvious plot observations and indulge in an odd spot of fishing with his unlikely pal Frank is Detective Tarconi (Franois Berland), he really shouldn't have bothered.
If a Transporter 4 is even being considered, we can only hope that it's some kind of cross over where Jason Bourne, James Bond, John McClane and Frank Martin are pitted in a fight to death to see who is the hardest action hero… I'd pay to see that.
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