To call Transporter 3 a bad movie seems like one of those “Duh!” statements, but considering I mildly enjoyed the first two installments (the second one more than the first) and expected an equally entertaining ride the third time around the fact Transporter 3 was this bad comes as more of a surprise than a “Duh!” and that’s a shame.
We first met Frank Martin (Jason Statham) as a criminal transporter back in 2002 when he was escorting half-assed bank robbers and sexy ladies in duffle bags in his trunk. His “rules” of the road became his signature along with impressive car chases and fight scenes that required vast amounts of disrobing considering his jacket, shirt and tie all became useful weapons in battle. The ridiculous nature of the film was forgiven quite simply because there was no attempt to be serious, that is until the end, when they tried to give the film a message, which messed it up a bit.
Three years later Transporter 2 upped the ante and tossed out everything serious and resorted to scenes where Frank jumps cars off trash piles, twists them upside down and uses a hook dangling from a crane in order to remove a bomb from the undercarriage of his ride just before it blows up. And that’s just the start of it as underwear models wield uzis and lay waste to everything in front of them. It worked. Don’t ask me how, but it worked more than the first one and it was 100% unbelievable.
Cue 2008, another three years since the last Transporter and this time around it feels like a made-for-TV movie. Everything about Transporter 3 is cheap and I am beginning to think Jason Statham can finally be considered the next Jean-Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal. Statham has proved to be a guy that will make any movie as long as it involves kicking and punching. Where the earlier Transporter films were inventive this one just gives up as the most outlandish thing that happens is when Frank somehow gets a car on two wheels and squeezes between two moving semi trucks. It would have been cool had one of the trucks inexplicably blew up, but no dice. Even the villain is cheap in this one.
Cast as TP3‘s baddie is Robert Knepper, the same man that made a fool of himself in Hitman and does it weekly on Fox’s “Prison Break” as T-Bag. Knepper is certainly one of the worst actors getting any play at the moment and his character’s desire to smuggle toxic waste into Marseilles is one of the stupidest plot devices I have ever heard of. Frank’s involvement occurs when he is strong-armed into transporting Valentina (Natalya Rudakova) all over the place for reasons that never seem to make sense. Even worse, Frank and Valentina fall in love along the way. And I am talking bonafide love, not your cliché-driven lust requiring an illogical sex scene, but all out love. And instead of a sex scene you get Frank stripping off his shirt in an open field in one of the most ridiculous moments Statham has ever been involved in. If he wasn’t embarrassed doing it I will be embarrassed for him because it is a black mark on his career if there ever was one.
Frank and Valentina share more time discussing what’s for dinner than Frank spends doing ridiculous fight scenes as the emphasis in TP3 is everything that stunk about the first one. In the first Transporter things were cool while Frank was battling baddies, oil wrestling and waging war in subway cars, but when it resorted to melodrama between him and his Asian companion it went awry, much like the majority of this flick. Valentina and Frank share long conversations during their cross-country drives and you can only sit back and wonder what kind of enjoyment director Olivier Megaton was thinking audiences would get out of it all. I can tell him if he doesn’t know – NONE.
Fight scenes involving Frank vs. the world are no longer rich with cool moves and power punches as it all feels so trite and unoriginal. Statham used to pack weight with his unique style and I am hoping this is just a simple set back as I would like for Crank 2 to be as wildly inventive and fun as the first one was, but if this flick is any indication Statham’s appeal may have finally run out.
