The Transporter Refueled
The Transporter Refueled – PG-13
Release Date: Fri 04 Sep 2015
The Transporter Refueled is something of a reboot for The Transporter franchise with Ed Skrein takes over the title role of Frank Martin from Jason Statham. The plot involves The Transporter being hired by a mysterious group of women that he eventually learns what is going on with them despite his rule of not wanting to know details for plausible deniability. Frank’s father Frank Senior played by Ray Winstone becomes a pawn as he is captured by the villain and must be saved.
Luc Besson gets a writing credit as he has been involved in The Transporter series since creating it. His name is not a sure thing for a good story any longer as he also had credit on the dreadful Taken 3. Here we have a lot of similar problems on top of the fact that Staham’s absence makes it just that much clearer how much The Transporter relied on his charisma. Skrein isn’t terrible by any means, but he isn’t even close to as likable as Statham.
The real problem behind the movie is the overuse of a few story elements and conveniences. Frank Senior is a former spy, but he manages to get captured twice in the film. The second time happens minutes after the first. The four women that hired The Transporter turn out to have some explained (but not really explored) past in a human trafficking operation that they are exacting revenge upon. Guns never work reliably, even at close range. If there’s a gun being fired at you in this movie, you have plenty of time to walk up and spray your assailant with a fire extinguisher. And then, for plot convenience, three of the four girls drop dead as they’re no longer important to the story or have enough sympathy to elicit more of a “I guess they didn’t make it” response.
On top of the ridiculous guns that miss unless the plot tells them not to, we have plenty of close up action scenes that are hard to follow and one incredibly stupid stunt that involves a man driving a jet ski onto pavement in order to throw himself like a javelin through the driver and passenger side windows of a car.
If you’re looking for a movie to make fun of with your friends or just laugh at how ridiculous it all is, The Transporter Refueled meets the criteria of a “so bad it’s good” movie. If you’re hoping to see a clever and fun action movie like the original, it isn’t here.
Aaron, Cal and I saw it in the theater and had a discussion in the car:
