Transporter 3

I loved both Transporter and Transporter 2, and I couldn't wait until opening day of Transporter 3. I recruited a few of my friends and we made a girls' night outing to see it. My big disappointment was with the director's comic fast-frames in the fight sequences. Jason Statham moves so fluidly in fight sequences, that it's both beautiful and a turn-on to watch. However, with jerky camera movements and the ridiculous fast-forwarding, the elements of grace and power were lost. The director tried to substitute plenty of still moments with a shirtless Statham in an attempt to give us some eye candy, but none of this did Jason justice, nor was it a fitting substitute. Natalya Rudakova was much too young for him as a romantic interest (kind of creepy), and I was unconvinced by her cheesy accent and her character's incongruent language mastery. Her character went from describing gourmet delicacies in perfect English to saying "what means ____" (insert basic word).

I loved François Berléand again, and of course Jason put in another outstanding performance. Natalya could have been a fun character, without the bad accent and romantic twist to the plot.

Please give us a Transporter 4 more in line with the previous two films!!

This film was brilliant. One of the best films I have seen in the past decade. Im only joking. It wasn't.

If your an aspiring chef, definitely watch this film. There are so many comments about different foods, different restaurants that you kind of get the feeling that the female character is a wikipedia for recipes. If your an avid BMX fan, then you can learn some swift new moves from Jason. Overall, this film was about as entertaining as a microwave meal. Oh, and the sound quality was terrible. In a cinema, I expect to hear things clearly. When the Russians or whatever they were spoke, it sounded like they were talking Jelly baby. As a side note, I've learned how to make a lobster thermidore.

Also, if the bad guys had watched the other 2 transporters, then they would have surely realised that Jason CANNOT be beaten. Even by a group of 10000000 guys. The guys a soldier. You have to give him that.

This is a sequel with no energy and a plot that focuses on all the wrong things. The girl that Frank is stuck with for most of the movie is obnoxious and a frustratingly horrible actress.

This could have been a good movie. I mean, it's got Frank having to drive a girl around, with an explosive anklet that'll blast him to smithereens if he's separated from his car. And she's the daughter of a politician who's being blackmailed into signing some document to allow chemical ships to get into the country without a hassle. Oh, and it's got Robert Knepper, an underrated actor, playing the villain.

Where did it go wrong? Maybe it was the fact this installment didn't match or surpass the fun ridiculousness of the first two (with the exception of Frank driving his car onto a train--and then THROUGH the train--to get to the bad guy). Or maybe it was the fact that the fight scenes were sped up (they literally fast-forwarded through some of the fights!) and blurry, with too many close-ups for you to tell just what the hell is going on. Oh, and that girl. That girl was terrible.

Some people may enjoy this, but for me, it was a huge disappointment.

I just went to the Premiere at Planet Hollywood last night, and if you enjoyed the ridiculous action seen in the first two, you will definitely enjoy Transporter 3. Jason Statham returns and kicks everyone's ass regardless of the situation, and the vehicular action in this one is better than ever. His new "girl along for the ride", played by Natalya Rudakova, serves as a humorously contrasting (and hot) addition to Frank's troubles, and she managed to deliver a half decent performance. Transporter 3 is over-the-top and cheesy at times, but if you don't mind those things in an action movie, then there is much entertainment to be found here.

I'm beginning to see a pattern here, and I'm thinking that The Transporter, if it has the legs for more movies, could be the franchise equivalent of being a poor man's cousin to James Bond. Created and written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen for three installments so far, the character of Frank Martin is a roguish looking strongman with a penchant for suiting up when going about being the best of the best in personalized delivery, with no questions asked, no names, and a whole host of other rules which he will of course break during the course of the movie.

Like Bond, he drives a cool, sponsored signature car. While Bond has his Aston Martins and BMWs, Frank Martin traded his BM in the first movie, for the armoured Audi A8 W12 which he has brought over from the second film, and here, that sweet supercar got to be put through even more punishment. It also shows itself to be a cut about the rest in being waterproof too, and an occasional dunk in the river won't put out the powerful engine, with tyres that self-inflate too (ok, so just in case you don't realize, I'm pointing out mistakes).

And it follows the Bond formula in having the Chick of the Flick highlight too. Shu Qi came on board in the first film as the vixen who traded her body to convince Frank to take the job. Then we had the good girl-bad girl combination for Part 2 with Amber Valletta and Kate Nauta respectively. Here, model Natalya Rudakova, with her very obvious freckles getting in the way, continues from where Shu Qi left off, being the flower vase who can't speak English fluently no thanks to her strong accent, and that's fine since their characters hail from a non-English speaking country.

Director at the helm has been round robin too (now by Olivier Megaton), with Hong Konger Corey Yuen crafting the first movie, before taking the back seat in every film by taking charge of how Frank Martin does hand to hand combat. So we do get to see some consistency in the technique that Jason Statham adopts in performing martial arts and various stunt work on his own, and Statham definitely has what it takes to fill up the void of having the lack of Western action heroes on the big screen. I suppose with more hits under his belt (pardon the pun) he could cement this status, and I sincerely hope that he avoids the plague of being relegated in his later years to the direct to video market.

As far as the story goes, it just provides a basic premise and an excuse to see how our hero gets to sit behind the wheel again. The Frank Martin now is more laid back, and spends most of his leisure time with the French detective Tarconi (Francois Berleand) whom he has befriended now. Until of course his reputation catches up with him, and in a Crank inspired moment, has to do what he does best for the bad guys, much against his wishes. The villains almost always seem to be part of what's topical at the moment, and this time Frank Martin has to contend with some eco-terrorists who are blackmailing a minister, involving some permit for industrial waste.

But who cares about any semblance of the plot anyway? We're looking for some adrenaline pumping, high octane action aren't we all? And here's where it takes a slide for the worse actually. Unlike Bond, there isn't anything new or refreshing to keep the audience engaged and away from the deja-vu feeling. For some reason, Besson and Kamen's story seemed to be stuck in a lot of drama and talk-talk-talk, giving our hero not much time to flex his muscles. And when he gets the chance to, it's the same old one-man-surrounded-by-thugs routine where he effortlessly dispatches them all with aplomb.

Such fight scenes are becoming common in The Transporter franchise, and Corey Yeun definitely needs to rejuvenate his action sequences designed for the franchise pronto. There are only two major fisticuffs scenes, and they all follow the same routine, which spells boring. And apart from that, we get the usual complementary car chases which seem to be rather standard with the usual camera shots and angles capturing the action too.

Fans of the series and of Statham will no doubt make a bee line at the box office for this, but I suspect that should there be any more thoughts on extending the franchise beyond the three films, then while the formulaic plot format can be kept, the action better be innovative because nobody likes seeing the same thing twice. Since different directors got a chance to have a go at the franchise, perhaps a change in action choreographers might give Frank Martin the lift that he needs.