Transporter 3 (Widescreen/Full Screen) (Bilingual French/English Edition)

Frank Martin (Jason Statham) is back and this time he is forced to transport Valentina (Natalya Rudakova), an objectionable young woman, across Europe by a group of villains who have fitted Frank and Valentina with explosive bracelets. If either of them move more than 75 feet away from Frank's car, their bracelet will explode.

Given all of the other reviews that I have read of "The Transporter 3", I went in to this film expecting to be disappointed and was pleasantly surprised when I wasn't. Although the script is not quite as good as Luc Besson's previous film, "Taken", this is more than made up for by the awesome stunts and martial arts sequences (choreographed by Cory Yuen, who was responsible for the action sequences in the previous two films). Two action sequences in particular, one involving Statham effectively performing a striptease while fighting half a dozen villains, and the grand finale on the train, are alone worth the price of admission.

One of the main criticisms that had been leveled at this film is that the heroine is distractingly ugly and annoying. Although Rudakova and Statham seem to have absolutely no chemistry between them at all and I did wonder why Frank Martin was even remotely interested in Valentina, she wasn't so annoying as to ruin the film for me. Valentina is meant to be objectionable, and keeping that in mind, I actually thought Rudakova did a good job of playing her. As for her looks, I didn't think she was bad looking, just different, and I actually thought it was nice to see someone who didn't look the same as every other Hollywood heroine.

As for Jason Statham, I am still not certain as to whether he can act or not, but who really cares. Statham became famous because of his personality and his martial arts skills and both are again on display. Sure this film is somewhat derivative of Statham's other film, in particular "Crank", but that didn't bother me, and it shouldn't bother other Statham fans either.

Transporter 3's lead writer (Luc Besson) has a thing for redheads.

I came to this conclusion after watching Transporter 3. I'm a big fan of Besson's science fiction foray, The Fifth Element, and all I could think as I watched the slinky, thickly accented Valentina (Natalya Rudakova) was how Transporter 3 would have been so much better if it had been Milla Jovovich in the role.

That I was distracted by the stiff Rudakova's acting is a testament to how much the film insists on zooming in on her, letting her drone on and on in her broken English, and the endless patience that Frank Martin (Jason Statham) seems to have for what amounts to a rich brat in a miniskirt and heels.

Oh right, the plot. So anyway, Martin is a wheelman who does jobs with certain rules. These are all meant to ensure success in Martin's job as a wheelman. By the time we reach Transporter 3, every one of those rules has been broken.

And that's the problem. The rules made Martin interesting. In Transporter 3, Martin has become a walking parody of himself, fetishized by the director to strip away (literally) everything likable about him, only to replace it with beefcake shots of Statham with his shirt off, whip-cut fight scenes that don't let us see his martial arts prowess, and aggravating supporting characters whom the Martin we know from the first movie would have left on the curb.

The gimmick here is that Martin can't just run away from his job because a super-advanced device is connected to his wrist that will blow him up if he is more than 75 feet away from the car. For reasons that only make sense to movie villains, Martin is forced to drive Valentina to a variety of locations, during which they track him constantly.

That's right, the bad guys track Martin's every move. In fact, the movie is obsessed with keeping Martin in the car to the point that the entire universe seems hell bent on keeping him in it. Even the laws of physics are in on this cruel joke, which helpfully bends its laws to allow Frank to do ridiculous things like drive his car on two wheels, float it to the surface using air pressure from its tires alone, and land it on a moving train.

The generic villain Johnson (Robert Knepper) is a victim of the So Bads. As in, he's So Bad that:
... he kidnaps drunk college girls!
... he shoots his own men when they asks stupid questions!
... he's helping sneak toxic waste into Europe!

That's right, uber-villains can now hit a new low: they're not just mean to you, they're mean to the environment!

The movie just spirals from there. Valentina, patently unlikable, somehow seduces Martin, who doesn't show the least bit of interest in her. Given that the ransom picture of Valentina shows her in a schoolgirl's uniform, there's at least a ten-year difference between her and Martin. Ick.

There are so many logic fallacies that you have to wonder if Besson's just mocking his audience. Statham as Europe's answer to the Kung Fu martial artist is just plain awesome -- I loved him in The Transporter and was willing to forgive the silliness of Transporter 2 -- but this is too much. Frank Martin deserves better.

I really liked the first two, but this was awful. Most of the movie is horribly written dialog between the two leads that has no relevance, and the plot holes are too gaping to ignore. Consider that 1. Contracts signed under duress aren't valid and 2. There's no reason why the girl has to be transported in the first place. The occasional slip-up is tolerable in an action movie, but two reasons why the entire thing is pointless is too much. Even the above could be forgiven is there was some great action, but while (what little there was) was good, it was nothing like in the previous two movies.

Oh -- one highlight was the Ukrainian textile industry. Apparently two of their cloth seat backs will stop bullets, and a dozen will protect you from an explosion powerful enough to send an ambulance ten feet in the air. I've got a high tolerance for silly action, but I couldn't take this.

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