By Linley McCord
Some things should just be left unfueled, and the Transporter movies were one of them. After a 13-year hiatus, Hollywood decided to revamp the 2002 movie “Transporter” into a film with a fairly similar plotline and characters.
“The Transporter Refueled” introduces cunning and handsome Frank Martin Jr., played by Ed Skrein (you might remember him as the original Daario Naharis in “Game of Thrones” third season…or maybe not). The fact that he’s a junior is an important note: his father was the notorious Frank Martin of the first film. Transporting illegal material seems to run in the family.
A mirror plotline of the first, the movie follows a handsome ex-military man in the business of moving objects that would be otherwise unable to move by the postal service. He works on a strict set of rules: no names, no telling what’s in the package, and always being punctual. But his carefully laid rules fall apart when his father is kidnapped by people who wish to use him for revenge against someone who Frank himself has a troubled past with.
Cue the three women with the platinum blonde wigs. They coerce Frank into getting them in and out of places that will undermine their previous pimp, but it quickly becomes them leaning on him to do all their dirty work. There’s an obvious ringleader, Anna (played by Loan Chabonal), who flirts her way into Frank’s good graces. The other two seem to be nothing more than wing-women who wanted to escape from their prison of prostitution.
The action scenes were spectacular and completely ridiculous, more comedic than dramatic at times. The script was a cliché of all other C- action movies, and the villain was a playboy pimp who was taken down in a short but well-fought battle with Frank. There were also some blatant marketing money-grabs judging by the extensive use of iPhones and the Audi brand.
It could be equated to some of the “Fast and Furious” movies: shaky plot with a lot of absurd car chases. Worth the watch? Maybe, if you don’t want to take this action movie too seriously. Worth the DVD purchase? Definitely not. It gets a solid 3.5/10 stars.
Rated PG-13 for language, violence, and suggestive material.
