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TRANSPORTER 3
Movie Review

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TRANSPORTER 3
Movie Review
Directed by Olivier Megaton
Starring Jason Statham, Natalya Rudakova, François Berléand, Robert Knepper, Jeroen Krabbé, David Atrakchi
Review by Eli Manning

SYNOPSIS:

Frank Martin puts the driving gloves on to deliver Valentina, the kidnapped daughter of a Ukranian government official, from Marseilles to Odessa on the Black Sea. En route, he has to contend with thugs who want to intercept Valentina's safe delivery and not let his personal feelings get in the way of his dangerous objective.

REVIEW:

Transporter 3 is one of those it depends films. It depends are whether you can suspend disbelief of anything a human being is able to do with his body or when driving an automobile. If you don't care and want to watch a pure fantasy film that's setting is earth, then this is the film for you.

Question #1 for audiences to answer before watching Transporter 3 is - Is there a line in action films when something so unrealistic happens, it takes you out of the film? OR Is the only thing that matters is pure entertainment?

Transporter 3 crossed the line for me. The situations that take place in this film is so out of this world, I just couldn't believe any of the characters or plot situations anymore. Bottomline, I left the film emotionally while I was still watching it because I couldn't believe anything anymore and therefore didn't care about the characters and couldn't be entertained.

Yes, I can watch Jason Statham (Frank Martin) beat up 20 men all by himself once and believe it. But 3 TIMES!!!!! That was a little too much. All these guys have to do is pile on him at the same time. Why did they continue to fight him one at a time. Were they retarded?

The car chases scenes are fun in Transporter 3, just like they were in the other two films. But when you start doing things to a car that are impossible to do more than once, it just goes a bit too far.

Question #2 for mainly the female audience is - Do you ever get sick of the amount of times Jason Statham takes off his shirt?

The creators of Transporter 3 are geniuses in figuring out the most ways to get their lead character take off his shirt and keep the plot moving.

They really should of just decided a way in the beginning to have him have his shirt off the entire time so he didn't have to take it off and put it back on so many times. I'm sure a weeks worth of filming Transporter 3 were Statham taking off his shirt and putting it back on. And perhaps that's the point! I guess I would get sick of a gorgeous female with her top off for 2 hours, but if they kept having her lose her top throughout the movie, then I would appreciate the body even more.

For an action film, Transporter 3 is subpar in comparison to others. And it all comes down to the plot. It's just weak. You can see things coming a mile away and there is no what's going to happen next feeling that's needed in this genre. We always need to be a little step ahead of our main character so we understand truly what a huge conflict he's about to face in each scene. And that keeps us interested and therefore more entertained.

Transporter 3 just doesn't give you anything that you haven't seen already. They don't even take advantage of the great Eastern European landscape. Half the film is in a car where two people are talking nonsense with nothing pretty to look in the background.

And I do have to question the casting of our female lead, Natalya Rudakova (Valentina). It's a gutsy choice to give a large role like this to a woman who has never appeared in a film before and unfortunately it doesn't pay off. I just wasn't emotionally involved with her performance and if she dies, she dies. And Transporter 3 keys on this role to deliver a performance of someone we care about. I like the way it was written, but she just didn't hit the beats the character was suppose to do.

But like I said, it depends! If you like a B-movie version of an action film, then Transporter 3 is the film for you. IF you're looking for something more sophisticated and on par with the many great action films in recent years, then this is definitely not the film for you.

I was looking for a lot more. And I just didn't get it.

1 1/2 stars out of 4!

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