Reviews & Previews - Transporter 3

Posted on Thursday, November 27, 2008 at 05:00 PM

Transporter 3

By: S. Tran

Starring: Jason Statham, Natalya Rudakova, Francois Berleand, Robert Knepper
Directed By: Olivier Megaton
Running Time: 100 minutes
Rated: PG 13

Unsafe At Any Speed

There are a few things I never thought I would see in my lifetime, pigs flying, snow in hell and another sequel in the Transporter franchise. And yet I found myself in the theater at the preview about to watch the latest installment of this goofy series. My first clue that it was not going to be a good two hours was the fact that I appeared to be the only critic who accepted the invitation to preview the movie. I guess the more experienced critics didn't need to see the film to know what was coming. I hope to be as wise one day.

I could tell you a little bit about the plot but I really doubt you would believe me because it makes so little sense. Would you believe me that the bad guys kidnap the girl to force her politician dad to sign some unexplained agreement and then have her driven around Europe while they waited for him to agree to their terms instead of just hiding her somewhere? Of course not, that would be stupid, and yet there it was on screen.

How about if I told you that after they think they have killed Statham instead of getting in their cars and making a get away they decide to hop on a slow moving train. Then they wave their guns around so the conductor would be sure to alert the police at the next station? You would call me a liar. I wish I was.

I seriously think the pre-production for this movie involved the producers making sure that (a) Statham was willing to come back as Frank Martin and (b) that they could get some money from Audi for making the car the co-star. After seeing the film though Audi probably asked for its money back.

The movie was directed by Olivier Megaton, who was much better as the bad guy in Transformers. When he wasn't on the set personally it appears they had a trained chimp direct the rest of the movie. This is probably fitting because it seemed like a monkey wrote the script for this hot mess. How else could you explain the dialogue which was a cross between a bad romance novel and an 8th grade writing assignment.

I'll give credit to Statham for managing to get through his lines without actually throwing up in his mouth. It's sad to see his career fall so far since his great performance in Snatch many years ago. On the bright side, his love interest in the movie, Rudakova, won't have far to fall because she is pretty much at the bottom already. Sometimes you can give someone a pass if English isn't their first language but in this case I doubt she is a much better actress in her native language. The romantic scenes between the two were as cringe worthy as anything George Lucas forced on use in the last Star Wars films.

The movie did have one redeeming quality, it made the first two movies seem like Oscar contenders.

1 out of 5 stars.