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'Transporter 3' delivers action, not much else
Movie Review: Transporter 3
By Brett Troxler
btroxler@wbrz.com
Web Producer
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PLAY OFFICIAL TRAILER
out of 4 stars.
Frank is a retired Special Forces operative who now lives in Marseilles and makes his living as a mercenary transporter. He works alone, and has a short set of rules he lives by: Never change the deal, no names, and never open the package. However, as we’ve seen in previous installments, rules are made to be broken.
When it comes to driving, Frank is among the best of the best. He’s precise and calculative, capable of achieving improbable stunts and can apparently make hairpin turns at will.
When outside his car, he can and will regularly win fights where he’s outnumbered 10-to-1, often with the aid of a few articles of clothing. He’s your basic one-man-army in a movie franchise that’s pretty much “Die Hard” with a driver’s license.
In “Transporter 3,” Frank finds himself in the middle of a nasty deal that involves government officials, toxic waste and hazardous cargo. After turning down a job, trouble finds him. This gives him yet another chance to show off his impeccable driving skills and take his attachment to his beloved car to a whole new level.
You see, the job starts when he is kidnapped by a man known simply as Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson forces Frank’s hand by attaching a dangerous bracelet to his wrist. If Frank gets more than 75 feet away from his car—Kaboom!
Frank is charged with transporting two bags and a Ukraine woman, Valentina (Natalya Rudakova), across Europe. Valentina, also equipped with a bracelet, turns out to be a handful. She’s glum and solemn in the beginning, but quickly turns annoying after Frank pressures her to open up. Besides her tendency to talk affectionately about food, there’s not much to like about this character.
Francois Berleand also returns in a supporting role as Inspector Tarconi, and his dry wit plays well with Statham’s hard-edged seriousness. Statham basically goes through the motions here as Frank Martin, showing nothing extraordinary in the way of acting, but blowing you away during the sequences of fisticuffs. The fight choreography is the film’s strong point, more so than the action on wheels. Cory Yuen, who directed the first film, served as the martial arts choreographer in this film.
Olivier Megaton hops in the director’s chair this time around, becoming the third director in as many films, but he might be far from a Megahit here. “Transporter 3” really drags in the middle, pulling you through a lackluster chase scene and some mostly meaningless sexual innuendo. The payoff at the end isn’t even lucrative as Frank’s adversary is not quite as physically gifted as those he’s faced in the past. The better action is shoveled into the first half of the film, where you’ll find the fist-pumping, fabric-testing garage brawl that will be the movie’s selling point. The whole package doesn’t deliver like the original “Transporter,” though.
On the other hand, if you’re the type that wants action for the sake of action, the type that doesn’t wonder—or care—how twenty or thirty bullets can miss an entire car or question how a cell phone programmed to call only one number suddenly forgets its programming, then “Transporter 3” is probably right up your alley. In that sense, it gets the job done.
