Transporter 2 was number one at the box office last week, thanks in part to Maude and me. We both enjoyed the goofy fun of the first Transporter, which has two of the best fight scenes ever (one involves a doorbell and the other bicycle pedals). We were also looking forward to seeing Jason Statham in action once again, as he is a criminally under-used actor.
As we left the theater after watching Transporter 2, I said to Maude, "Quick, let's get out of here before anyone realizes that we paid money to see that."
The first Transporter was fun and stupid; this one is just stupid. I don't go to action movies looking for plausibility, but don't insult my intelligence. I can't help feeling insulted when the Transporter flips his car 360 degrees in the air and clips a crane to knock a bomb off his car. I sense nothing but contempt from the filmmaker who has a plane crash full speed into the ocean with minimal damages.
I don't understand what is so hard about making a movie like this. Your audience has very limited demands: cool fight scenes and action sequences. Period. They couldn't care less about glowing purple orbs of vaccines, Russian biochemists, and Columbian drug cartels. (And Columbian drug cartels? Seriously, Luc Besson? Is it 1986?) The problem with Transporter 2 is that it doesn't even deliver this. The fight scenes are so heavily edited that you can't really tell who is punching whom, and the action sequences are too cartoonish to be any fun.
Despite this being a terrible movie, I have to say that I'm glad it made 20 million last weekend. Maybe now Jason Statham will finally start getting the roles he deserves. Let's just hope it's not Transporter 3.
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4 comments:
Thanks for the review. I haven't seen either of them, but the commercials have been getting the attention of the action/fighting part of my male brain.
Sounds like I should rent the first one and skip the second.
Hey, it could have been worse. You could have gone to A Sound of Thunder. (Never rely on the strength of Ray Bradbury's name).
Started to watch the first one the other night on tv. I lasted until he jumped the car off the bridge, landing perfectly on the semi pulling a car-transporting trailer, and then shot with his gun the bar holding the cars on the trailer, leaving them free to roll off and obstruct the way for the cops chasing him. Of course cars are never chained down and always left in neutral when being transported on a semi trailer.
Sorry, too stupid for me.
Jared-- That's definitely what I would recommend.
Lemming-- I didn't see how they could spin a 15 minute story into a whole movie, so I was a little leery of the whole thing. Adaptations rarely do it for me.
Susan-- You are right; the first one was pretty dumb but at least it was fun. This one wasn't.
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