There are any number of boring jobs held down by all sorts of people, rich or poor, and well-educated or not. And what might be just right for some folks could very well be viewed as monotonous to others (such as being a movie reviewer and having to watch and then write about everything that's released).
I can think of a number of jobs I'd rather not do, and I imagine one that would wear on my nerves would be that of a driver of goods and/or people. After all, some of that involves sitting around and waiting for long periods of time and then suddenly rushing to meet some sort of deadline imposed by others.
Then there are the demanding clients who sometimes don't see you as much more than a glorified cabbie or luggage handler, followed by the fact that you have to sit in lots of traffic and never get to drive where you want. To make matters worse, unlike those who drive real people, those who deliver packages often have no idea what's so important that it absolutely, positively has to get there overnight.
Accordingly, I always wonder if said drivers ever daydream -- while stopped or en route -- that they're really like a movie character involved in high speed chases and elusive maneuvers and/or are carrying some sort of mega-important or precious cargo. You know, like Frank Martin in the fun "The Transporter" from 2002 or its more shaky and less enjoyable 2005 sequel, "Transporter 2."
After all, and as portrayed by the incredibly charismatic and quite buff Jason Statham, the character is the poster boy, if you will, for cool, sexy and skilled drivers who know how to deliver, if you know what I mean. And that can only mean Frank's back again behind the wheel when not punching, kicking and otherwise knocking the bad guys silly in "Transporter 3."
While I liked the first pic in the series quite a bit, the second went a bit heavy on the cheese, quick edits to "enhance" the action, and increasingly preposterous stunts that threatened to turn the endeavor into a high-octane, live-action cartoon.
With the imaginatively named Oliver Megaton (what, he thinks he's "da bomb," cuz his surname is a noun for a million metric tons of TNT and, oh never mind) now serving as the series' third director in as many outings, more of the same (sadly regarding the sequel, and not the original) is delivered in copious quantities this go round.
Thus, it doesn't seem to vary much from its immediate predecessor in tone, although to be honest I don't recall much of the second film's plot. The one added twist, however, courtesy of screenwriters Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, is that Statham's character, along with his Ukrainian traveling companion (horribly played by Natalya Rudakova), have been outfitted with some "jewelry" (dangerous to remove, high-tech bracelets of sorts) that will detonate should either or both get more than 75 feet from Statham's returning car (that's something of a star itself, what with all of the driving stunts).
That adds a fun irritant and additional complication for Frank and his peeved demeanor, including some resourceful and quick thinking when his car suddenly turns into a submarine and later a train passenger of sorts. Beyond that, it's more of the same old, same old, with returning action choreographer Corey Yuen still keeping things quite busy, even if the whole thing is over-edited to within an inch of its cinematic life.
Beyond Statham and returning sidekick François Berléand who's pretty much wasted this time, the performances are nothing remarkable, and the dialogue (particularly from Rudakova's character who occasionally seems to be channeling Yoda's scrambled sentence structure delivery) is cheesy when not outright atrocious.
It's only Statham's physical presence and strangely charismatic glower, along with the increasingly preposterous and thus resultantly goofy stunts that make the film partially worthwhile. Even so, it's clearly not good enough to warrant another pickup or delivery of a fourth installment, no matter how much the films might otherwise brighten an ordinary professional driver's fantasy world. "Transporter 3" rates as a 4 out of 10.
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