So when you rip-off a minor icon, you have to follow the steps: establish early on that you don’t plan on changing a thing – it’s the same guy, see? Same suit, same demeanor, same habits, even the same street villains. In the very first present-day scene, several armed thugs try to steal Frank’s car in an otherwise empty parking lot – hey, that just like the first Transporter! Or was it the second? No matter. Next, establish that the same crap is going to happen as happened in previous iterations, like when supermodels kidnap Frank’s dad (Ray Stevenson) to take down a Russian prostitution crime syndicate. Wasn’t a kidnap coercion ending in big boss mayhem the plot of #2 … or was that the third? Finally, conclude the film in such ridiculous fashion that nobody in the audience actually cares that you completely replaced the hero.
The Transporter Refueled did an excellent job of covering the first and second markers. And if you squint just so, you can kinda see Jason Statham leaking out of Ed Skrein’s acting. Where it failed, however, and failed a lot, is making us forget this is Jason Statham’s role. Imagining Ed Skein as the relatively moral and highly skilled dandy badass is every bit as wrong as losing Keanu Reeves for Speed 2 or Macaulay Culkin for Home Alone 3. But Ed did try to make us forget … and so did the screenplay – after the garage ass-kicking, the ever-punctual Frank is 38 seconds late for picking dad up and Frank Sr. scolds, “There are seven shades of early and only one shade of late.”
I wanted to remember that line because I really couldn’t picture the universe where it came from. In my world, early is early, ho hum, and there are all sorts of late – from the forgivable, like being 38 seconds late to pick up your dad because thugs hijacked your day, to the annoying, like missing a train or a plane, to the character-flawed, like missing a deadline that costs a contract or a job. But I digress; this movie certainly wasn’t made to teach me anything.
Frank is consistently a hero for type A people: he lives by rules and order, always. He dresses neatly and he destroys those who fail to comply. I bet his picture hangs at type A meetings – a glossy shot, expertly framed and wiped of fingerprints, kept in a dust-proof safe in-between functions. A members show up and discuss Frank’s rules ad nauseum. Frank accepts an offer from Anna (Loan Chabanol) for transporting something and it takes her exactly eighteen seconds to break the rules. She has that covered, of course, she’s holding Frank, Sr. hostage in order to get Frank to act.
The peril of Frank, Sr. sets up Frank’s entire film motivation. Whenever, and I’m serious here, whenever he’s not in Frank’s company, he’s being abducted. The worst part? They don’t even need this. If you just set up the contract correctly in the first place, Frank lives to abide by the terms. But what did I expect? The bank gets robbed and the next scene is the police consulting the local mafia with the video. “You see, Mr. Karasov, the bank has been robbed and we’d like your professional opinion as a drug-smuggling white-slavery prostitution-lord as to who did it. Here, look at the tape.
Any thoughts?”
The Transporter franchise is all about the stunts and the brawls and while the brawls were lackluster – this is where Jason Statham skreins Ed up and spits him out – the stunts were hit and miss. Two of the hits involved some awesome stunt-driving: one where the getaway car eludes motorcycle cops in a cul-de-sac by skidding a u-ey just close enough to de-cap three consecutive fire hydrants and escaping in the wake, another on a runway involved using a tarmac vehicle as a stunt ramp to elevate from the pavement into one of those elevated snake-like corridors (do they have a name?) that allow passengers to get from plane to terminal. Both unbelievable, of course, but, hey, movie.
Statham made us care about Frank. Imposter Statham makes me care about how Frank might react if this were the right Frank. To be Frank myself, there wasn’t a good reason to make this film.
Superific driving man replaced? Oh no!
Worry not. This guy can still make engines go
Jury’s still out
For Ed Skein’s clout
Can’t decide — Is he friend or faux?
Rated PG-13, 96 Minutes
D: Camille Delamarre
W: Adam Cooper, Bill Collage & Luc Besson
Genre: Cynical reboot
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: People who can’t tell one white guy from another
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Jason Statham fans
