TRANSPORTER 3 (Olivier Megaton). 103 minutes. Now playing. For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NN
It’s a lot more fun to watch Jason Statham kick people in the face than it is to watch him drive around them.
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Transporter 3 brings Statham’s hyper-?competent courier, Frank Martin, back for another round of high-?stakes package delivery. This time, our hero finds himself conscripted to drive from Marseilles to Hungary with a bulky bag in the trunk and a sulky Ukrainian party girl (Natalya Rudakova) riding shotgun.
The catch? At the behest of his eeeevil American sponsor (Prison Break’s reptilian Robert Knepper), Frank’s been fitted with an explosive bracelet that will detonate if he strays more than a few yards from his beloved Audi – which means we spend most of the movie stuck inside the car with him as he thinks his way through each new obstacle.
A drivey Transporter movie is a lot less fun than a kicky Transporter movie. The first two films struck a nice balance between car stunts and gymnastic punch-?ups, but the premise of the third literally fixes our hero in place, forcing Statham to remain seated for the bulk of his mission, pretending to worry about stuff on a green-?screen background. It’s not the best use of his talents.
