Simply A Masterpiece

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Frank Martin (Jason Statham) returns as the Transporter. He's driving in Florida as a chauffeur for the Billings. They are having marital problems and Frank rejects Audrey Billings (Amber Valletta)'s advances. Frank drives the boy Jack to the doctor's office and stumbles onto an elaborate scheme to infect the anti-drug forces. Gianni Chellini sent the psychotic Lola to kill the doctor. Frank manages to escape but Gianni placed a bomb under his car. Frank is forced to drive off and the boy is kidnapped. Everybody assumes Frank has kidnapped Jack except Audrey and Inspector Tarconi.Who doesn't love a lingerie clad killer? This is completely over the top and an unabashed popcorn action movie. More than ever, Frank is superhuman. The action is fun but it gets a bit mind-numbing after the first half. It's one of those movies where the bad guys' guns vanishes and get a bunch of random hand-held weapons so that they have a fun acrobatic fight. It couldn't really top the lingerie killer model in the doctor's office anyways. It's also hamstrung by a slightly off virus story.

Impossible situations, lots of heavy bullets (that can't penetrate the ...wooden door of a doctor's office though), fires and explosions, "1 guy against 20" fights (guess who wins), car jumps across buildings and of course the caricature of all villains who won't kill the hero immediately but instead he will be extremely talkative and explain to him all the ...plot just to be sure he got it right! Did I miss anything? Ah yes. And a deadly ...virus! So this movie doesn't seek points for its originality. But is it fun? Well...yes. The mindless kind. To start thinking of ...reality and the laws of physics or medicine, it's a waste of time.Still, the -more than obvious- use of green screen and wire work and CGI (not the best out there) is distracting. The movie fails in that department.The script, the direction, the editing and the music, are the kind that you expect in a movie like this.Overall: It is what it is. A lightweight, not-to-be-TAKEN serious action, pop corn movie. (Did you got my "Taken" pun?)

Professional driver Frank Martin is living in Miami, where he is temporarily filling in for a friend as the chauffeur for a government narcotics control policy maker, and his family. The young boy in the family is targeted for kidnapping, and Frank immediately becomes involved in protecting the child and exposing the kidnappers.....The first one was a surprise hit, and it was easy, high concept stuff, so it would be silly to not make a sequel, and Jason Statham's star was on the rise too.And it's more of the same stuff, Frank losing his shirt several times, comedy bad guys, a villainess who wears almost next to nothing for no apparent reason, and of course,there is always the comedy sidekick who helps Frank on his way, and gets him out of scrapes.But, it's not as good as the first movie, and its blatantly stolen from Man On Fire, but with this time, the added bonus of an airborne virus.The fights are as thrilling as the first, and the last act is hilariously over the top, but you cannot shake that feeling of Man On Fire.And wondering what happened to Matthew Modine.

Now having seen all three of the Transporter films, I feel comfortable in my assessment of the third one as pure crap. While this and the previous entry don't really qualify as great cinema, they can still be enjoyed as entertainment. This sequel offers up a similarly thin premise, but executes it effectively and with little downtime for needless exposition. In fact this one is more streamlined than the first, clocking in at about 6 minutes shorter. The basic plot has Frank racing against time to get the antidote for a virus that infected a US government official and his family (and potentially a whole lot of other people). However, despite the shorter running time, everything that was good about the previous film is better in this one, namely the action sequences. The acting is mostly decent, although one of the villains, a female, didn't do as well as everyone else. Thankfully, she was quite a character and fairly easy on the eyes. Of course, it almost goes without saying that the fight choreography was excellent, done by Cory Yuen, who directed the first one. There was a really balletic quality to the fights that made them fun to watch, and the shooting style was able to adequately capture Jason Statham's abilities. The editing was a bit tighter this time around, but it also had the effect of making the hits seem harder, which I suppose is a good thing. There are only a couple of other things I feel worth mentioning in terms of the overall look and feel of the picture. Even though is from Luc Besson's production house, at times it looked and felt like a Michael Bay film, but not necessarily in a bad way. Part of this is due to the over-saturated color scheme which Bay uses in his film these days. Part of it could also be that it was set in Miami, which is where BAD BOYS and its sequel were set. Other than that, though, the cinematography was better and the humor was more appropriate than one finds in a Michael Bay film. Overall, the plot is just as ludicrous and convoluted as the first, perhaps more so, but the fight choreography and action sequences are a slight step up. Recommended for fans of the first one.