Review: Transporter 3
The Transporter's third cinematic outing also marks the installation of the franchise's third director - and with a name like Megaton - Olivier Megaton - one might be excused for expecting a degree of explosiveness.
What ends up getting blown apart during Transporter 3, unfortunately, is any hope for continuing interest in this progressively less-entertaining series, with this latest film ending up as easily the weakest of the three.
The connecting element on the behind-the-camera side of the three productions has always been Luc Besson, whose creative talents are much appreciated by fans of the kind of fast-action, clever set-piece, darkly-comic film fare exemplified by La Femme Nikita and The Professional (both of which he wrote and directed) and - of course - The Transporter (which he scripted). Luc was also responsible for one of the more original and graphically stunning bits of sci fi in recent years (if we can call 1997 "recent") in the form of The Fifth Element.
But it's for good reason that a film is considered to be the child of its director, since the director is responsible for turning the concept (from whatever source) into celluloid reality. The director of the original Transporter, Corey Yuen, achieved something fresh and highly watchable by basically making a Hong Kong actioner set in the French Riviera. That film set a standard that has yet to be matched - although director Louis Leterrier's Transporter 2 made a pretty good stab at it, thanks in large part to a pair of sexy-nasty villains played by Alessandro Gassman and Kate Nauta - whose Lola character sets the bar for girls (with matching designer machine pistols!) your mother should have warned you about.
In front of the camera again, of course, is Jason Statham (as Frank Martin, who IS "The Transporter"): he of the rippling abs and spinning, limb-snapping takedowns. Also present for this third (and, we trust, final) episode is François Berléand, as bemused, easy-going police inspector Tarconi. Not to mention the requisite Audi sedan, which - as always - plays a major role in events.
This episode's exotic female appears in the person of perky freckle-faced newcomer Natalya Rudakova, as a redheaded Ukrainian party girl named Valentina. Theoretically, Valentina serves as the "love interest" - but thanks to an insultingly contrived sexual encounter, she ends up as little more than a pitiable eye candy caricature.
The casting of slickly-sinister Robert Knepper (Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell from Prison Break) as the chief bad guy should have been a stroke of genius, but somehow Knepper's portrayal of an expediter-for-hire named Johnson comes across blander than boiled celery. Maybe it's the absence of the sly southern accent he essays when playing Bagwell; maybe it's his character's lack of a device (like a fake plastic hand, for instance); or maybe it's just the lackluster scripting, which has placed more emphasis this go-round on mechanical contrivances and ludicrously impossible stunts than on even the most cardboard of character shadings.
Here's the plot in condensed form: ruthless American industrialist plots to dump toxic waste in Eastern Europe. Through coercion. Bad guy (Johnson) sends minions to hire Frank; Frank kicks bad guys' minions' butts. Johnson hires a second-rate transporter dude who proves fallible (and quickly dead); Johnson renegotiates with Frank (and by "renegotiates" we mean he slaps a two-component explosive mixture reverse-proximity-fused bracelet on Frank and demonstrates to him that he'd better comply, or else); Frank agrees it's better to work for Johnson than to have his own personal johnson blown to bits.
Cue seemingly endless facile exposition between Frank and passenger Valentina involving futility, great restaurants, Russian novels, futility, best things to have at great restaurants, why the hell don't we just go ahead and have sex, because of the futility of it, no really why, oh well if you put it that way - and then THAT way, now you're my sweetie, please don't die, get out of the car, but you'll die!, no, really, get out of the car... etc., etc.
After a bit of the ol' BMX bike-rider-chasing-car-and-actually-catching-it fu, followed by some driving-on-two-wheels-between-roadblocking-semis fu, and ending with a bout of Audi-U-boat-commander fu, we eventually (after about 90 minutes) work our way into the climactic scene involving a speeding train, an in-without-knocking all-wheel-drive sedan, a surprisingly-capable hand-to-hand fighting bad guy and a truly unbelievable turnabout-is-fair-play ending which makes mince meat (note the Thanksgiving dinner reference) of the entire exploding bracelet device, and we've thankfully (note the Thanksgiving reference) reached the end of this jaw-droppingly stupid tale.
When I tell you that even the action sequences are ho-hum (thanks in equal measure to their preposterousness and their flash-cut, "what-the-Hell-just-happened?" editing style) you may get the idea that I'm not recommending this movie for any but the most rabid fans of either Mr. Statham or the Transporter franchise. Praise be to casting directors that Statham starred in a really quite good film earlier this year, or we'd have to consider writing him off along with all things Transporter-related.
Which - as far as I'm concerned - can sleep with the fishes.
EASY FOR YOU TO SAY: "You are the gay?" - Valentina to Frank, re. his reluctance to engage in sexual activities in the midst of a life-or-death crisis situation
EASY FOR YOU TO SAY, PART II: "No, I am not 'the gay'." - Frank to Valentina, prior to allowing her to coerce him into intimate relations