The first order of business in "Transporter 2" is entertainment. Pure unadulterated, braindead entertainment. The words "over-the-top" don't even begin to describe the preposterous action setup. Just for a random example, when our hero Frank Martin (Jason Statham) is confronted by sultry vixen Lola (Kate Nauta), scantily-clad in bra and panties and armed to the tilt with two hand-held automatic weapons, she's able to empty literally hundreds of rounds at him and he doesn't even get hit, even though he's right in front of her. There's another scene where a bomb is attached to the undercarriage of Martin's invincible Audi and he uses a crane to scrape it off - in midair. Or another scene where said Audi is able to make a gigantic leap from one building to another over a busy intersection. Or the other, ah, to heck with it; you get my points, don't you?
"Transporter 2" is the high-charged sequel to the first movie "The Transporter" (2002), which had equally high-charged action and mayhem courtesy of a European film crew backed by none other than Luc Besson himself. Fight choreographer Cory Yuen again stages the action but presumed Besson acolyte Louis Leterrier (who directed the utterly fantastic "Unleashed" earlier this year) is behind the camera this time.
This time around, the action has been shifted to America - Miami, Florida, and Martin is the driver for the Billings family and he has become especially close to their young son Jack (Hunter Clary). The wife, Audrey (Amber Valleta), has grown close to Frank as well and even though the two do exchange glances here and there and she comes this +close+ to bedding him in the heat of the moment, she still remains faithful to her absent husband Mr. Billings (Matthew Modine).
Evidently since becoming a politician, Mr. Billings has alienated the wife and son and has become the target of some ruthless criminals, particularly Columbian drug cartels, and they've dispatched a team of high-powered assassins to take him out. They would include near-naked Lola, her raspy lover Gianni Chellini (Alessandro Gassman), and creepy Russian chemist Dimitri (Jason Flemyng). But rather than waste thousands of rounds of ammunition and manpower, they have another devious way of getting at the Billings family. Their plan is to kidnap the son, infect him with a deadly virus and then release him back to his family, so that anyone he comes into contact with is immediately infected, and they'll have the only antidote.
The plot to "Transporter 2" only exists to serve up plenty of unbelievable action scenes. There's more action, even lesser plot, and even lesser intelligence - all ingredients for a perfect end-of-summer piece of cinematic action fanfare. Essentially, in the end, "Transporter 2" plays out more like a high-stakes video game in which the hero must simply move from point "A" to point "B" in a set amount of time while dispatching a legion of disposable bad guys. It even takes the form of a video game at one point where Martin must escape from an airplane after it crash-lands into the ocean.
Again, Statham shows us that more or less, he was born to play this part. He displays a nifty set of moves, and even takes the time to straighten up his jacket and tie after taking down some bad guys. And the script also allows him to do some pretty unbelievable stunts in the action scenes, including hanging onto a bar and kicking the crap out of 10 armed goons and commandeering a jet ski. What's so great about that, you ask? Well, he steals it, along with its owner, uses a boat as a ramp and begins riding the thing down the street. See?
Is it a good movie? Yeah, sure. I had a free ticket to see it and I'm not going to let that go to waste. It was even more fun because it's my birthday today so "Transporter 2" made a semi-perfect gift to myself. Is it better than "The Transporter"? I guess so, if you like action where there's no point to it, not that it matters in a movie like this. I would strongly advise, however, that you turn your brain off before you see it, and then enjoy.
Just wait for "3" in a few years, then we'll see if this franchise will still have any gas left in the tank.
7/10
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