Movie Review: Transporter 3

Transporter 3 (2008) 

Directed by Olivier Megaton

Written by Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen 

Starring Jason Statham, Natalya Rudakova 

Release Date November 26th, 2008

Published November 27th, 2008

Memo to the producers of the upcoming Cannonball Run remake (I know you're out there): if you haven't already made Jason Statham an exorbitant offer to appear in your movie, don't bother making it. No, The Transporter is not exactly an iconic character on which makes such great demands. But, the Transporter movies having made a few hundred million combined at the worldwide box office, the character has earned enough cultural cache to deserve to be a one off punchline in a throwaway remake. It's the least you could do.

Yes Transporter fans (I know your out there, put down the Grand Theft Auto for a moment) Frank Martin is back. Who the hell is Frank Martin? He's the Transporter. Nevermind. He's Jason Statham in the Transporter movies. Nevermind. He's the bullet headed guy who beats people up and drives fast. You're really making this too difficult.

Back behind the wheel of his newest edition Audi, Frank Martin has a new 'package' to deliver. Her name is Valentina (Natalya Rudakova) and she is the daughter of the head of the Russian equivalent of the EPA. The russkie dad doesn't want to let some American industrialist park nuclear waste in his back yard so the industrialist has thugs kidnap the russkies' daughter and give her to Frank.

Why Frank? Who knows. She is a hostage? Yes. Why don't they just hold on to her until they get what they want? Because then we couldn't have cool car chases and scenes where Jason Statham beats people up for asking such questions about this ludicrous plot.

Anyway, before I so rudely interrupted myself with unwelcome logic, Frank will drive the girl across Europe to Asia. If he doesn't do as he is told he will blow up. He was drugged and had a bracelet attached that will go boom if he gets 75 feet away from his car. No points for guessing that that whole 75 feet from the car thing will come back in the final face off with the bad guys.

The Transporter 1,2 and now 3 are not about logic. If they were then Frank wouldn't have been so surprised to find his package is a beautiful woman, as has been the case in each of the other Transporter movies. Logically? Pattern recognition might kick in and Frank would consider moving somewhere where people don't know where he lives and thus can't drug him and place exploding bracelets on him.

Logically.

But this isn't about logic, coherence or even a movie. It's about stunts and lots of them. Frank jumps a car off of a bridge and uses James Bond's classic underwater tire breathing trick. Later, Frank drives that water logged car off an over pass and on to the top of a moving train. Later, still on the train, he jumps the car from one car through the roof of another one.

Who needs logic when you don't give a rats ass for even the basics of physics.

It reads as if I hated Transporter 3. I didn't. It's not bad as far as cheap thrills go. I'm generally not a 'turn off your brain' kind of guy. However, catch me in the right mood and I can be forgiving of even the most illogic of leaps. Transporter caught me in just one of those moods and I found myself smiling my way through much of the blasted ludicrousness.

I particularly enjoyed the work of French actor Francois Berleand as Frank's French cop pal. As the only character who seems to remember having been through this before his nonchalant attitude toward Frank's astonishing acts is charming. He is either bored or simply unimpressed with his old friend's antics and his manner is quite amusing in the brief glimpses of him we get in between the driving and the beatings.

Transporter 3 was directed by someone  named Olivier Megaton. The explosive name is a fake, for those you with zero cognitive activity. He bestowed the moniker on himself to describe his audacious style. He may well have only got this gig based on that name. That he delivered big explosions is only him living up to the promise of his name. His next film should just be called 'Explosion'. As demonstrated in Transporter 3, he needs not a plot, just pyrotechnics and he can dazzle the willing masses.

Again, I implore you Cannonball Run producers, a cameo or even a starring role. Either works. Just make sure he drives an Audi A1 and gets to beat on someone. It's comic gold. You'll thank me later.