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87 out of 124 people found the following review useful: Not a shade on the first two Transporter movies and here's why, 6 December 2008 Author: Matthew Sexton from England
Read through all the reviews of this movie. Big fan of the first two myself and just got back from watching this. Pretty surprised that nobody has articulated the real reasons why this movie doesn't work.Firstly, if you didn't enjoy the first or second movie all of this probably won't be very relevant. I would have thought that most people watching the third would have likely seen and enjoyed the other films in the series.So, why is this the weakest film in the series? Anybody's review who criticises it based on a unrealistic plot or implausible action is missing the point. This might be obvious but there are numerous reviews citing these as the reasons for the film being average/bad. It's also an important part of the formula that worked well in the first and second films.The reason this third effort doesn't work as well and is not as enjoyable is due to a variety of factors - TONE and PACING probably being the key reasons and also areas where it departs from the previous instalments.By tone i mean a few things. Is there ridiculous over the top action in this film? Yes, most definitely, but the problem is in how it is being presented. The other movies made you laugh in their almost comic book presentation and stunts. This film is genuinely trying to sell itself as a serious action movie. They completely took the humour out of all the potentially very humorous moments through the more 'arty' editing, over the top score dramatic score (soundtrack definitely plays a big part of the different tone in the 3rd movie) and generally lousy script.This leads on to the pacing, which is far too slow at times. Way too much dialogue between Statham and the girl. Yes we know the character fairly well but the movies were always about the action and less the dialogue. Jason Statham is capable but the script can't really be saved here.So, a dramatically more realistic Transporter movie but sucked dry of all the humorous and fun tone that made the previous instalments so much fun. As I said there are plenty of silly and deliberately humorous moments but the way it was constructed and presented meant I wasn't laughing anywhere near as much as I was in the other films. This in conclusion is the main failure of Transporter 3 - 5/10 just for being a new movie in an otherwise cool franchise.
97 out of 165 people found the following review useful: I liked the Movie, 28 November 2008 Author: bryanleslie44 from United States
I read many of the reviews on rottentomatoes and almost did not go to see this movie. What a mistake that would have been. If you want to go to a movie,sit down and be entertained for 1 hour and 40 minutes with non stop action then this is the movie for you. I am not a serious movie critic I am just an average guy who wants to go to a movie that will be enjoyable. This movie is fun to watch from the beginning to the end. I asked others that were sitting near me what they thought of the movie and they all liked it. I thought that Jason Statham was perfect as Frank Martin. I wish that I had a body like that, I would do a striptease for a living. I enjoyed that the French Inspector was more involved in this movie over the last 2. He brought a lot of humor. The girl at first was annoying but she kind of grew on me and by the end of the movie I liked her.
61 out of 97 people found the following review useful: Disappointed in the director, 29 November 2008 Author: Ana_K_71 from United States
I loved both Transporter and Transporter 2, and I couldn't wait until opening day of Transporter 3. I recruited a few of my friends and we made a girls' night outing to see it. My big disappointment was with the director's comic fast-frames in the fight sequences. Jason Statham moves so fluidly in fight sequences, that it's both beautiful and a turn-on to watch. However, with jerky camera movements and the ridiculous fast-forwarding, the elements of grace and power were lost. The director tried to substitute plenty of still moments with a shirtless Statham in an attempt to give us some eye candy, but none of this did Jason justice, nor was it a fitting substitute. Natalya Rudakova was much too young for him as a romantic interest (kind of creepy), and I was unconvinced by her cheesy accent and her character's incongruent language mastery. Her character went from describing gourmet delicacies in perfect English to saying "what means ____" (insert basic word).I loved François Berléand again, and of course Jason put in another outstanding performance. Natalya could have been a fun character, without the bad accent and romantic twist to the plot.Please give us a Transporter 4 more in line with the previous two films!!
80 out of 136 people found the following review useful: Not as good as the first, better than the second., 22 November 2008 Author: Cimta-1 from United States
I just went to the Premiere at Planet Hollywood last night, and if you enjoyed the ridiculous action seen in the first two, you will definitely enjoy Transporter 3. Jason Statham returns and kicks everyone's ass regardless of the situation, and the vehicular action in this one is better than ever. His new "girl along for the ride", played by Natalya Rudakova, serves as a humorously contrasting (and hot) addition to Frank's troubles, and she managed to deliver a half decent performance. Transporter 3 is over-the-top and cheesy at times, but if you don't mind those things in an action movie, then there is much entertainment to be found here.
36 out of 51 people found the following review useful: An exercise in Brechtian hyper-realism., 5 December 2008 Author: Grant_Price from United Kingdom
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
This hasn't been verified (yet), but I think Transporter 3 is an attempt to make the stupidest film of all time on every single level, from the characters to the editing to Jason Statham chasing an Audi S8 on a BMX. Even the tag-line makes no sense. "This time, the rules are the same. Except one." What do you mean, the rules are the same, except for one of them? They're not the same at all then are they? They're different. "This time the rules are the same except they're different." More honest.The plot for Transporter 3 is utterly illogical. Dome-headed Frank Martin (Statham) is forced against his will by evil contractor Johnson (Robert Knepper) to transport Valentina, a kidnapped girl from Marseilles to Odessa in order to make the girl's father, a Ukranian official, sign a document allowing a faceless US corporation to dump hazardous waste in his country. Why does it make any difference whether the girl is in Marseilles or Odessa? It doesn't. So why is she being moved? Because otherwise the story wouldn't exist. There, the film has no meaning. Considering the threats to the Ukranian official are made by phone anyway, the girl could be kept in a room next door or across the other side of the world and it would not affect her father's decision. Now, hypothesise that there was actually some reason for her to be in Odessa. Would it not make sense for the corporation to merely hire a private plane to fly her there instead of strong-arming a professional killer (Frank's transporting skills are constantly secondary to his punch-a-guy-through-a-wall abilities, despite what the titles of the trilogy would have you believe) into taking her there by car with a promise of certain death for Frank when he reaches his destination, thereby giving him the ultimate impetus to change these plans in a way that would ensure his survival and the deaths of those who made his involvement in this nonsensical exercise in Discordianism compulsory? The answer is yes.Jason Statham does well in his role as "any character from any film he's ever been in." Except one (I can do it too, tag-line). He actually achieves his career nadir here, when he does a striptease for Valentina, the most annoying character ever committed to film. Played by Natalya Rudakova (her first and, if God/Buddha/contract killers exist, her last), the character embodies everything wrong with the movie. She is incredibly shallow, talks perpetually, finds Frank stabbing a metal pole into somebody's throat a turn on, and tries desperately to look sexy by pouting or arching her eyebrow in every scene. The attempt to provide her with any sort of dimension beyond 'cardboard cut-out' by interspersing every Frank/Valentina conversation with an elaborate description of what she would like to eat at that given moment is not cute, it makes me wish Frank had left her seat-belt undone and driven into a bollard at 80mph. In fact, the only instance where her screen presence is appreciated is when she gets punched in the stomach by the villain and falls to the floor crying. It was almost worth enduring the prolix runtime for.Miscellaneous instances of brilliance include Frank smashing head first through the window of his Audi to oust the guy driving it and then a second later we realise Frank has one of those new 'self-repairing' cars where windows fix themselves and nobody mentions it again. The magic car also manages, in true X-Wing style, to lift itself out of a lake using only the force (or a handy bag of air), before summoning an old man on a tractor to somehow lasso it and pull it to shore whereupon the flooded engine starts first time. Other than the car, the highlight of the film is Frank's inexplicable decision to attach an explosive device to the antagonist, trigger its timer, and then stand next to him looking confused before jumping behind a chair a second prior to the explosion. For an anguished moment I thought Transporter 4 was a no-go, but then Frank emerged totally unscathed and I punched the air in unbridled delight.To conclude, Transporter 3 is the worst action film of 2008, an ineffable feat considering this is the same year that spawned Wanted. Natalya Rudakova takes it upon herself to make the film unwatchable, and not even the ridiculous stunts that would never happen, even in a monkey-Shakespeare infinity, can provide anyone with an excuse to see it.
19 out of 27 people found the following review useful: Truly Beyond Redemption, 3 December 2008 Author: plex from United States
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS. I like the Transporter series as much as the next person.They are fun, mindless, entertaining romps with very little plausibility, adroitly led by Statham who has the goods to make this series worth-while viewing. BUT, this 3rd installment falls WAY short in several ways. There is no pacing, only two short fight scenes in the first hour and the climax is very anticlimactic. I knew I was in for a snooze-fest when a W-12 Audi (his favorite car) crashes into his home and he doesn't even blink an eye. How the girl goes unnoticed in the back seat while a gang of EMT workers pry the injured driver out is a mystery to me. But this would be just the beginning of the ridiculous nature of this film.The film really never takes off, leaves you hanging and wanting more without ever delivering, just a lot of driving around Europe and not much more. The girls, is just that- a jaded selfish homely GIRL, who's less than half of Martins age, yet he gets seduced by her even though she's a major pain in his arse' and thinks little more past pleasing herself with drugs and partying, NOT the kind of girl we have been led to believe Frank Martin would ever respect or be attracted to. No over the-top villains or undie-clad gangsta' chix- nothing.The 2 most outrageously stupid scenes ( and there are many to pick from) has to be the bike chase scene where apparently Martin is a word class BMX stunt-racer that can outrun a Audi W-12 muscle car. The second was him inflating large flotation devices (conveniently stored his trunk), while he's deep underwater, with only the air from his tires which caused the 2 ton car to rise to the surface and still enough for him to breath on and drive the car when magically towed to shore by a good Samaritan.(this all takes place in less than 10 minutes story-time)Even though I don't expect sharp dialog, this film takes it to a new low with completely vapid and one-dimensional plastic delivery and even less character development. Stay away from this one- its not worth your time, even on DVD.
19 out of 27 people found the following review useful: What a disappointing comeback for a pathetic excuse of a movie., 30 November 2008 Author: Elizabeth from Chicago
Frankly this movie was a big slap in the face. The only person I actually tolerated was Robbert Knepper. (Most of you know him from Prison Break as T-bag; the notorious villain). He is well-known for these kinds of roles and was the only character that was actually believable in his part.This Movie was very typical, nothing exciting, very unoriginal. Most of the action scenes were recycled from the last two movies. How many times must 'Frank Martin' use fighting as an excuse to do a strip tease. After a while every scene became even more predictable.The one thing which made me look away from the screen to ponder whether or not this movie expected me to take it on seriously, was the lousy acting of (Natalya Rudakova)Valentina. When she began strangling the driver which took Frank's place, I hoped he'd began strangling her instead.Natalya Rudakova's acting felt pretentious from the beginning and sickened me throughout the entire movie. I struggled to keep myself from walking out on this one. I only hoped that such a ridiculous scene would be accompanied by something that would salvage this poor excuse of a movie... but I was wrong.The only good thing I could possibly mention was an okay storyline. Something needs to be transported, Frank must be near his car at all times otherwise he would die. A typical storyline for Transporter, which I believe is getting old.The chemistry between Frank and Valentina felt forced and the attempted sex scene between them where she hit him with the line 'make playtime with me' well I wanted to personally slap the screen.Too many rules were broken in this installment, which broke down its credibility. Except for Jason Statham's well-worked body, everything else got tired fast.The lame acting, poor lines gave me a low opinion of Transporter 3, which sucked because I really wanted to like this one.
24 out of 37 people found the following review useful: A Nutshell Review: Transporter 3, 25 December 2008 Author: DICK STEEL from Singapore
I'm beginning to see a pattern here, and I'm thinking that The Transporter, if it has the legs for more movies, could be the franchise equivalent of being a poor man's cousin to James Bond. Created and written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen for three installments so far, the character of Frank Martin is a roguish looking strongman with a penchant for suiting up when going about being the best of the best in personalized delivery, with no questions asked, no names, and a whole host of other rules which he will of course break during the course of the movie.Like Bond, he drives a cool, sponsored signature car. While Bond has his Aston Martins and BMWs, Frank Martin traded his BM in the first movie, for the armoured Audi A8 W12 which he has brought over from the second film, and here, that sweet supercar got to be put through even more punishment. It also shows itself to be a cut about the rest in being waterproof too, and an occasional dunk in the river won't put out the powerful engine, with tyres that self-inflate too (ok, so just in case you don't realize, I'm pointing out mistakes).And it follows the Bond formula in having the Chick of the Flick highlight too. Shu Qi came on board in the first film as the vixen who traded her body to convince Frank to take the job. Then we had the good girl-bad girl combination for Part 2 with Amber Valletta and Kate Nauta respectively. Here, model Natalya Rudakova, with her very obvious freckles getting in the way, continues from where Shu Qi left off, being the flower vase who can't speak English fluently no thanks to her strong accent, and that's fine since their characters hail from a non-English speaking country. Director at the helm has been round robin too (now by Olivier Megaton), with Hong Konger Corey Yuen crafting the first movie, before taking the back seat in every film by taking charge of how Frank Martin does hand to hand combat. So we do get to see some consistency in the technique that Jason Statham adopts in performing martial arts and various stunt work on his own, and Statham definitely has what it takes to fill up the void of having the lack of Western action heroes on the big screen. I suppose with more hits under his belt (pardon the pun) he could cement this status, and I sincerely hope that he avoids the plague of being relegated in his later years to the direct to video market.As far as the story goes, it just provides a basic premise and an excuse to see how our hero gets to sit behind the wheel again. The Frank Martin now is more laid back, and spends most of his leisure time with the French detective Tarconi (Francois Berleand) whom he has befriended now. Until of course his reputation catches up with him, and in a Crank inspired moment, has to do what he does best for the bad guys, much against his wishes. The villains almost always seem to be part of what's topical at the moment, and this time Frank Martin has to contend with some eco-terrorists who are blackmailing a minister, involving some permit for industrial waste.But who cares about any semblance of the plot anyway? We're looking for some adrenaline pumping, high octane action aren't we all? And here's where it takes a slide for the worse actually. Unlike Bond, there isn't anything new or refreshing to keep the audience engaged and away from the deja-vu feeling. For some reason, Besson and Kamen's story seemed to be stuck in a lot of drama and talk-talk-talk, giving our hero not much time to flex his muscles. And when he gets the chance to, it's the same old one-man-surrounded-by-thugs routine where he effortlessly dispatches them all with aplomb.Such fight scenes are becoming common in The Transporter franchise, and Corey Yeun definitely needs to rejuvenate his action sequences designed for the franchise pronto. There are only two major fisticuffs scenes, and they all follow the same routine, which spells boring. And apart from that, we get the usual complementary car chases which seem to be rather standard with the usual camera shots and angles capturing the action too.Fans of the series and of Statham will no doubt make a bee line at the box office for this, but I suspect that should there be any more thoughts on extending the franchise beyond the three films, then while the formulaic plot format can be kept, the action better be innovative because nobody likes seeing the same thing twice. Since different directors got a chance to have a go at the franchise, perhaps a change in action choreographers might give Frank Martin the lift that he needs.
69 out of 130 people found the following review useful: "Transporter 3" is a great example of good, "dumb-fun"... Not to be taken seriously, this sequel will leave you breathless with awesome action... A worthy follow-up..., 26 November 2008 Author: MaximumMadness from United States
Riding on after the fun and at times hilariously over-the-top "Transporter 2", Jason Statham is back as Frank Martin, aka, The Transporter in "Transporter 3." And, if you enjoyed the previous films, I can guarantee you will love this ride of mayhem.This time around, Martin has been kidnapped and forced into his new job by Robert Knepper's character, the villain known only as 'Johnson.' Johnson has slapped a chemical-bomb-bracelet onto Martin which will explode if he strays from his car by more than 75-feet- an insurance policy to make sure he completes his task- transporting a sexy young woman named Valentina (Natalya Rudakova) and two mysterious bags throughout parts of Europe, for reasons unknown. There is a plot involving Valentina being kidnapped, and being used by Johnson to blackmail her powerful father, but it isn't very important to the overall story, it is just there to justify the action.And action is something this movie doesn't skimp out on. While not as show-offish as the previous film, which had action in every-other-scene, this entry in the series definitely has its share of fist-fights and car-chases, explosions and gun-battles. Director Olivier Megaton (no, I'm not making that up), takes over for Louis Leterrier (co-director of the previous two entries) and does a good job at maintaining the mood set by previous films, and he does great with the action. Though I will say the camera-work is sometimes sub-par, and sometimes a little too "Jason Bourne Shaky." But overall, if I wasn't told any different, I'd assume Leterrier was still directing, which is good, because a series like this should generally feel consistent.The story itself (written by "Transporter" and "Transporter 2" scribes Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen) is halfway decent for a silly, PG-13 action-fest, and ends up being much better than most will give it credit for. I've already seen the comments of the film being bad, but we all know that those aren't the type of people to be listening too. If someone accuses the third film in a silly franchise like this of "sucking", and then complains about the plot or the characters, then that person is taking it too seriously. This ain't a serious movie, this is a "brain drain" movie... where you let your brain shut off and you drain your IQ for the 100 minute running length while letting yourself be thrilled, before exiting the theater and turning the ole' noggin back on.This is "dumb fun" at its finest.Also returning as Inspector Tarconi is Francois Berleand, now given much more screen time as the comic relief and the guy who gets to piece together the story for the audience. He does wonderful, as always.A large portion of the film involves the love-story between Martin and Valentina, and this is where the movie may become hit-or-miss for the fans. Essentially, Valentina is the "Anti-Frank Martin"- she is fun-loving, spunky and very open to anything. Frank finds her annoying at first, but you can tell he almost envies her lifestyle compared to his own strict life, which he now is starting to realize has been holding him back. You can tell they are a good match for each other because they even each other out. And Rudakova does a good job with the role, though the audience may think she goes a little too far during certain scenes, where her antics go wild. Still, she adds a lot to the plot, and keeps the story fresh- after all, we can deduce that Frank was never able to keep his connections with Lai, or "go anywhere" with Mrs. Billings from the previous films. And hey, Rudakova made me fall in love with her (and her character), so thats gotta count for something.One last comment on Jason Statham, the star of the film, before I wrap this up. I truly think this series has proved he has what it takes to make it as a big-time star. He has had to show emotions through a character that likes to ignore or disregard them, and he has proved himself physically. He's also a decent actor. I think this series, and particularly Statham, are not getting the attention they deserve.All-in-all, I liked "Transporter 3", it was a great ride filled with good action, cool characters and a silly but decent, cliché-ridden story. And hey, clichés are clichés, but they work! I give it, as a fan, an 8 out of 10.
14 out of 21 people found the following review useful: Fight scenes are shot & edited so poorly, 18 March 2009 Author: udar55 from Williamsburg, VA
Honestly, I thought I was going to have an epileptic fit from the fight scenes. No joke - in a one minute fight scene there are almost 50 cuts. Can you imagine Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan or Tony Jaa doing that? No way. The point of an action film is to highlight cool action scenes. You can't do that when this Michael Bay-influenced rapid fire editing.I liked the first two entries in this series, but this one is really, really bad. I think the blame lies with director Olivier Megaton who seems to not know how to shoot or edit a fight scene to save his life. Seriously, why hire Corey Yuen to do your fight scenes if you are going to cut ever half second? Just a complete mess. The sad part is that nearly 60% of the movie is edited like this. Honestly, do we need three flash cuts when you are just showing a picture on a passport?
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