To tell you the truth, I was quite looking forward to reviewing the action-packed, techno blasting Transporter 3, and if you’ve been paying attention, the last handful of reviews consisted of inhumane bashing of films (or as I should be calling it, “constructive criticism”). I needed to enjoy myself for once, even if only 100 minutes of Jason Statham would keep me from throwing myself off a bridge. I condemned the last Blockbuster (the Bond-bomb) to celluloid hell, calling the story “convoluted” and the action “boring”, and The Transporter 3 is just the complete opposite: a brainless, plot-lacking, rip roaring bucket of FUN.
Jason Statham is Frank Martin, a professional driver that kicks ass and blows stuff up, while wiping off the occasional blood splatter from his business suit. Unfortunately for him, Johnson (Robert Knepper) wants him as a driver, and he rejects, so he kidnaps Martin and straps a bracelet on his wrist that acts as a babysitter in case he tries to walk off without delivering his package, the freckle-faced passenger Valentina (Natalya Rudakova) and two mysterious bags in the trunk of his black and flashy car. Oh, I have to tell you, of all the bad character traits the Bond girls have, Valentina steals all of them and makes them astronomically worse, with bad dialogue that will send you flying through the ceiling of the theater crying your eyes out in unintentional laughter one minute, and leave you hiding your face in embarrassment just by sitting there the next. There is one particular cringe-inducing scene that goes on for what seems like ages, where Valentina holds Martin’s car keys hostage until he performs a striptease. Agonizing.
Speaking of which, Jason Statham has a serious issue with his shirts somehow escaping his body in every scene. During a hand-to-hand combat sequence between him and about six other bad guys, they all manage to grab at his button-down and suit jacket and rip it clean off, another scene of cornball hilarity, obviously intentional. Oh, and likewise to the first and second Transporter movies, counting the amount of times characters defy the Laws of Physics is like counting the individual blades of grass on a lawn.
But what makes The Transporter 3 appeal is how Frank Martin is so easy to sympathize with. Sure, he drives his car like it can roll over a million times when he so much as breathes on the steering wheel, but besides that he’s just a good character. Statham could turn shit into gold, and he’s the reason that the Transporter franchise is so successful. That, and the massive amounts of money it inevitably makes.
If I play the “wise critic” game, I could argue that the story is very thin and that the characters aren’t exactly well-rounded, or that it’s just “same old, same old” compared to the last two. After all, I found myself chuckling at its stupidity ranging well beyond the ridiculous action sequences, but Transporter 3 was made with its audience in mind. It knows that it’s ridiculous, so it just works with it. I know that I’ve always said a movie shouldn’t require itself to be stupid to be entertaining, but the majority of people going to see The Transporter 3 don’t demand an intricate plot or complicated story. It just does what it wants to, it doesn’t try to disguise itself as a smarter movie (I’m looking at you, Eagle Eye). Even if it stretches your disbelief, it makes up for this flaw by being so much fun to watch that I stopped caring and just enjoyed it.
