Saturday 25 July 2015

TRANSPORTER 3

(Olivier Megaton, 2008)

Megaton has probably the coolest name for any action director ever. It seems as if he was fated to be an action director. What a shame then that his direction of action scenes is so utterly inept. Cut to pieces, pointless zooms and pans tied to those cuts (for impact!), witless camera angles which detract from the performers physicality rather than enhancing it...he does more or less everything wrong.
His film then is a waste of Jason Statham, a martial artist whose combination of brute force and grace is unique in modern action cinema (he is half football hooligan, half black belt).
Staham plays "transporter" Frank for the third time, breaking all of his self-imposed rules yet again as he transports a Ukrainian girl across Europe for some gangsters.
Along the way there are the usual car chases, a fistfight in a garage, Statham (or in this case a stuntman with Megaton making little obvious effort to disguise that fact) on a bicycle, and lots of tough guy posturing. It is totally forgettable, laking even a single memorable set-piece.
Next to Megaton, other Luc Besson proteges like Louise Letterier and Pierre Morel look like Walter Hill.

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