The Transporter
dir. Corey Yuen
20th Century Fox

The Transporter is just another action movie in the vein of James Bond. In this iteration, the formula is shaken up a bit by placing our hero, chippy yet cool Jason Statham, in the midst of Hong Kong action set in a France largely indistinguishable from northern California. If the approach seems shaky, it should: Recall the mismatch Vin Diesel rendered in XXX. Ultimately, both movies will go down as strange cousins to the Bond series, whose Die Another Day trailer eerily preceded The Transporter opening weekend like your big brother's Boxster parking in your Civic.

Frank Martin (Statham) is an ex-marine who makes a living transporting illicit goods. His means of transportation is a jazzed-up BMW, not unlike Diesel's jazzed-up GTO and definitely in the vein of The Jazzed-Up Aston Martin; like those other gents, he runs laps around bumbling Vauxhall cop cars and gets his job done.

The slim story begins 20 minutes in, when Lai (Qi Shu, a sort of Asian Rachel Weisz) turns up as illicit goods. From there, it's an ass-kicking until the final credits roll, with some crude attempts at diving into the narrative toolbox (is Lai lying about Chinese detainees being — gasp — illegally transported in "containers?"). Corey Yuen, another director ushered into martial arts genre filmmaking by producer Luc Besson, foregoes any serious attempt at entrenched storytelling, and thereby creates a film with a mid-stream, episodic feel. For example, Martin has a rich and revered military past … and we leave it at that.

At heart, this is a Besson pic, and a poor one at that. The action is good, but there is nowhere near as good a feel of film as there was with The Professional and Kiss of the Dragon. In fact, it doesn't even approach the depth of the fart-fest that was The Fifth Element. Images of Ian Holm scurrying around like a 5-year-old rival the Odessa Steps when placed next to Lai's prattle. And the rock/hip-hop soundtrack, another hint of Besson, is so powerful that it takes the viewers out of the scene and into the groove.

Statham somehow gets both the long and short ends of the stick. First of all, his character starts out far too promising. Martin is initially written as more of a Brian Helgeland hero, intent on maintaining the integrity of his goals. Frank has three business rules he firmly abides by: His garage is spotless and orderly. He measures his gasoline and washes his car to within an inch of perfection.

Once he opens the Lai package, though, his car is blown up and his house bombed. Martin then runs around shooting and kicking until he saves the world. The Frank Martin character loses his "proper deliveryman" identity and takes his place on the shelf alongside every other paper-thin action hero. Statham pulls them both off in a Pierce Brosnan-to-Bruce Willis segue, but the shift leaves the character without any real identity.

Having proven his comic timing in the Guy Ritchie collection and his ability to chase Asian criminals in The One, the table was set for Statham to bring the two skills together somewhere. Even a half-hour into the film, before Yuen turns The Transporter into A-level action, B-level love and a third-grade story, there is still enough of a Frank Martin niche to hang a sequel on. By the end of the movie, it's evident that the only reason to see The Transporter is Statham, but the writers have buried his wit with 10 wheelbarrows' worth of inane kicks and flips. If the movie gods have mercy, they'll push Statham into brighter light with next year's remake of The Italian Job. If they don't, look for another two-act clunker titled The Transporter II: Live and Let Lai in the near future.

— Andy Stilp (andy.stilp at gmail dot com)