Warp Drive Transport

Frank Martin (Jason Statham) is back for the third installment in the Transporter series, which has turned into quite a nice little franchise of action, hand-to-hand combat, lunatic driving stunts and even a bit of humor. There are many problems with "Transporter 3", including the usual suspension of physics and the lack of bruising and blood despite the repeated blows of fists, pipes, chains and whatever else anyone can pick up and swing. Add to this the problems of an opening that has a shaky hand-held camera that is borderline nausea-inducing, and an impossibly loud soundtrack that threatens to blow you through the back of the theater. It also makes the mistake of trying to be artsy early on, an ill-advised choice here.

Now that we have covered all of the negatives, I can assure you that "Transporter 3" is an awful lot of fun and after it finds its equilibrium, almost intelligent. Okay, not cerebral intelligent but not "Transporter 2" stupid and vapid either.

Frank's assignment is to transport the unusual-looking, but of course very sexy, Valentina (Natalya Rudakova). She is the kidnapped daughter of Leonard Vasilev (Jeroen Krabbé), the head of the Environmental Protection Agency in the Ukraine. Our lead bad guy is Johnson (Robert Knepper) and he is good enough but nothing special. And what would a Transporter pic be without Tarconi (the immensely talented Francois Berleand), the humorous but efficient French detective who has evolved from adversary of Frank to his buddy. It's a touch that works.

The story is not all that important. It's fair to say that it holds together well enough for the audience to sit back and watch the magically, physically gifted Statham strut his stuff in some of the best choreographed fight scenes in recent memory. Statham and company have created a running franchise that will never be Bond but it could very well be the second best action series of film in current cinema. If you can get by some of the innate silliness inherent in this type of filmmaking (I certainly did) you are going to enjoy yourself. You may even be transported into a near-childlike state of matinee pleasure. It didn't take me all of the way there but it came close enough to consider this a most successful trip.