The Transporter

Rating:
Summary: Good movie, but disappointing
Review: "The Transporter" had me entertained right up until the ending, which was a horrible way to end the movie. For those of you who haven't seen it, though, I won't tell you the ending. Other than that, pretty ... good.

Rating:
Summary: good action, ok plot, but statham is the man!
Review: move over vin diesel, cause jason statham's gonna kick your butt! the transporter is an all-around good action movie, with phenomenal fight sequences, a sweet car, and the expected mediocre plot. my only criticism is that there were about 3 places towards the end where they could have finished out the story, but wait-then there wouldn't be room for more gratuitous violence! also, america (and britain) has a new action hero in jason statham. he is smooth, slick, and suave, and he has a definite attitude. bottom line: i would love to see a sequel

Rating:
Summary: The Trasporter is pure fun!
Review: This movie may have less depth than a kiddie-pool, but it doesn't matter. The Transporter is a blast. It's about a man known as the transporter (played by Jason Statham - Snatch) who does exactly what his title suggests: transports. If somebody needs a case, a package, or even a person delivered to a destination, he'll do it if you give him enough money. He takes no names and doesn't want to know anything more than the weight of the object he is transporting. He runs his business with iron-fisted rules. Oh yeah, this man is hardcore...
But the transporter makes a mistake. On a routine job, he parks his BMW on the side of the road, gets out, and opens the trunk to find that the package is alive. No, the package isn't alive, but what's inside of it is. It turns out to be a hot Asian girl, and she causes nothing but trouble. From this point on, it's war.
The transporter makes the wrong people mad, but he takes care of business. He makes it evident that he has the talents of both James Bond and Bruce Lee. There's a healthy helping of entertaining fights, car chases, and explosions, and the villain does a good job of making you hate him. The Transporter is definitely worth seeing.

Rating:
Summary: BAM!
Review: Action fans get this movie!Were not talking French Connection but we are talking VERY COOL.Jason Statham has real ATTITUDE and PRESENCE.A must see just for the fight on the oil.VERY SLICK!I don't want to give away anything to those who missed it because Transporter didn't last long in the theaters.If you don't take your movies to seriously then I'm confiden't most of you will get a KICK out of it!

Rating:
Summary: XXX and Bond are worse!
Review: I've seen XXX, the new bond, and The Transporter. The Transporter is far and away the best of the three. I laughed so hard during it-- even harder than during Analyse That, which I saw immediately beforehand. The action was amazing, especially during that oil slick part.. you'll see what i mean... and the car chases were terrific.

I did not expect a great plot, but found that it left no loose ends and was above-average: much better than Bond and of course better than XXX. See The Transporter!

Rating:
Summary: Great action film.
Review: The Transporter is probably the best piece of escapist entertainment of the year, even if it doesn't have much story. Yeah, it's action from beginning to end, great action, too, boosted by a highly charismatic performance from Jason Statham, who looks to top even Vin Diesel in the next big action superstar sweepstakes.

Rating:
Summary: Dude, this was so damn funny. Take a friend. (SPOILERS)
Review: Oh my God, THE TRANSPORTER was incredibly funny. CROSSROADS funny. ORIGINAL SIN funny.

It works like a parody of one of those '80s action movies, where the villain has henchmen who shoot machine guns at the hero but don't hit him. Meanwhile, the hero finds ways to effectively use a random object, like a sweatshirt, to subdue large groups of people.

Seeing Jason Statham in SNATCH and LOCK STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS, I was not prepared to see him completely ripped, cool and awesome. And the whole movie plays like one of those Clive Owen BMW ads, except without the deep emotional resonance or without the obligation of having to make any sense.

After the first two action scenes, including the kickass opening chase scene, I looked over at Kacoon and said, "My God, I want that man ... now."

Unfortunately, in the movie, his love interest is Miss Horrible Asian Stereotype (whom he gives noodles and, strangely, chopsticks when he first entertains her at his home).

She apparently can read and follow an English cookbook recipe despite not being able to read it aloud. Her broken English line-readings are, I think unintentionally, the funniest damn thing in the film.

"That ... is ... point of romantic swim, no? No ... witnesses..."

There are also the typical moments. The cheezoid rap music that segues into the romantic violin music when a fight scene ends with the hero encountering Miss Asia. A villain walks into every scene with the same facial expression. A cop walks away from the hero's seaside home castle but isn't able to hear or return to the scene when it's attacked by a barrage of cruise missiles and machine-gun fire two minutes later. (When the first missile flies toward the house, I laughed out loud.)

Then comes the scuba-diving escape scene. Kacoon told me that the hero probably keeps two full diving suits and equipment under his house for just such an occasion. I told Kacoon it was lucky that Miss Asia was a certified diver.

We were 40 minutes into the movie, and Kacoon turns to me and says, "You know, we still haven't figured out what the hell this is about."

Soon, another guy shows up in the film, wearing so much pancake makeup that I told Kacoon he looked like Little Richard.

When you do realize the plot, though, it's so wildly implausible that I was asking Kacoon. "OK, so the hero's trying to stop people from smuggling illegal Asian slaves in the back of MACK trucks through the French Riviera? Where are they going? Who keeps Asian slaves in Europe? I thought Asia was the only place where they could employ Asians under deplorable conditions at a slave wage."

(Later, I mentioned to Kacoon that the scene where Miss Asia frees the slaves reminded me of the time when Catherine Zeta-Jones saved Mexico single-handedly in THE MASK OF ZORRO.)

At one point, during one of the hero's slow-motion, shirtless running scenes, I pretended to be running with him. And Kacoon howled.

"No, it gets more gay!" Kacoon said to me. "Soon, he's going to be covered in oil!"

It did. At one point, the hero, shirtless and doused in barrels of oil, deeply kisses a dead man underwater - to stay alive. (Yeah right.) I almost fell on the floor I was laughing so hard.

This reminds me, where can I hire myself an evil henchman? You know, someone who only exists to run at my more heroic enemies only to get killed?

And the ending, when Miss Asia frees the slaves (while I was wondering why they weren't all sick from being stuck in the back of a truck during an elaborate, multi-accident chase scene), also has her deliver what must be the worst line in the history of film.

Kacoon and I laughed so hard that we both cried. We're going to gather a group of people to see it again later this week. I suggest you do the same.

Rating:
Summary: Great Action (No More, No Less)!!
Review: This was the best movie I have seen Jason Stracham in. It's been a long time since I've had a non-Asian martial arts/action star come along and impress me the way that Stracham did in this film. Don't get me wrong I love all of Jet Li's movies. In fact, "Kiss of the Dragon" was one of my all time favorites. But ever since Van Damme & Segal started making stuff that mostly made it to the video stores and not the big screen, it seems that there have been a lack of non Asian martial arts movies available.

In my opinion, there is only one scene that really blows. The scene were after Stracham has kicked everyone's ..., goes looking for a car, finds a black Mercedes, and the girl is in the back seat, still tied up to the chair. This was a poor decision by the director to keep that scene in. They should have edited the script before shooting that scene, and made it appear that she was able to untie herself from the chair and successfully hides in the Mercedes.

Other than that, the movie was kick .... Would I go see it again? Yes. Would I buy it on DVD? Yes. This is how I rate movies to my friends. If you're looking for a great story line, writing, and acting then don't waste your time with this movie. But if you're into senseless violence to get you out of the everyday rut, then this is definitely the movie for you.

Rating:
Summary: Uninspired
Review: There have been a speight of recent action films cashing in on the idea that an action film needs a paper thin plot, bad acting, and a story line that may have been interesting thirty years ago; but for a release in 2002 'The Transporter' is problematic at best.

No the term 'Transporter' doesn't stand for anything as interesting as time travel, or a sci-fi action thriller. It simply means one who transports goods from place to place. Frank Martin (Jason Stratham) is an ex-army operative who feels that he was fighting a futile war. Since the end of his service Martin decides to move to France, live off his army pension and live an easy life transporting sensitive materials no questions asked. This is an interesting idea as the opening contains a rather impressive, yet ludicrous car chase.

The film although interesting has the rather large let down of falling into cliches. It seems that many of the lines used by Stratham seemed to have been impressive in action films of the past. But they just don't work here. The femme fatal in this rather uninspired story is Lai (Qi Shu), who not only screams a lot, but also her performance, like Stratham's becomes very tiresome over the course of the film.

The direction really is nothing special and it's almost as if director Corey Yuen couldn't decide whether to make 'The Transporter' a realistic, hard hitting action film or an over the top spectacle as seen in 'xXx'. The result is a wishy washy attempt at an action film, that doesn't really allow the audience to have the fun they could if all realism was thrown out the window. It's a little like keeping a big dog on a leash, although that's a fairly specious anecdote.

The overall effect of 'The Transporter' is of disappointment. The film leaves a lot to be desired, a cliched attempt at a modern action film that unfortunately doesn't succeed on any level. It makes me wonder when a decent action film will arrive in 2002; it seems that each and every attempt falls short. Even using British star Jason Stratham hasn't improved the formula of 'The Transporter', which seems to be destined to a long and dusty stay on the bottom shelf.

Rating:
Summary: Uninspired
Review: There have been a speight of recent action films cashing in on the idea that an action film needs a paper thin plot, bad acting, and a storyline that may have been interesting thirty years ago; but for a release in 2002 'The Transporter' is problematic at best.

No the term 'Transporter' doesn't stand for anything as interesting as time travel, or a sci-fi action thriller. It simply means one who transports goods from place to place. Frank Martin (Jason Stratham) is an ex-army operative who feels that he was fighting a futile war. Since the end of his service Martin decides to move to France, live off his army pension and live an easy life transporting sensitive materials no questions asked. This is an interesting idea as the opening contains a rather impressive, yet ludicrous car chase.

The film although interesting has the rather large let down of falling into cliches. It seems that many of the lines used by Stratham, seemed to hve been impressive in action films of the past. But they just dont work here. The femme fatal in this rather uninspired story is Lai (Qi Shu), who not only screams alot, but also her performance, like Stratham's becomes very tiresome over the course of the film.

The direction really is nothing special and it's almost as if director Corey Yuen couldn't decide whether to make 'The Transporter' a realistic, hard hitting action film or an over the top specticle as seen in 'xXx'. The result is a wishy washy attempt at an action film, that doesn't really allow the audience to have the fun they could if all realism was thrown out the window. It's a little like keeping a big dog on a leash, although that's a fairly specious anecdote.

The overall effect of 'The Transporter' is of disappointment. The film leaves alot to be desired, a cliched attempt at a modern action film that unfortunately doesn't succeed on any level. It makes me wonder when a decent action film will arrive in 2002, it seems that each and every attempt falls short. Even using British star Jason Stratham hasn't improved the formula of 'The Transporter', which seems to be destined to a long and dusty stay on the bottom shelf.