I suppose Rebooted would also have worked, but that particular pun might have been harder for people to catch. Strangely, I did see the original Transporter movie, but I have to admit I had forgotten most of it and I never did find the time to rewatch it before going to this one. That may be just as well, though, since I think that might have made me even more distracted during this flick, and I was barely able to pay attention as it was.
I suppose Rebooted would also have worked, but that particular pun might have been harder for people to catch. Strangely, I did see the original Transporter movie, but I have to admit I had forgotten most of it and I never did find the time to rewatch it before going to this one. That may be just as well, though, since I think that might have made me even more distracted during this flick, and I was barely able to pay attention as it was.
Since Jason Statham now has much better things to do like The Expendables and
So yes, he gets kidnapped by a gang of prostitutes who are trying to escape the life, and no wonder since it’s one of the bad guys from Taken (Radivoje Bukvic, here playing Arkady Karasov) who’s running this particular crime syndicate. The actresses are all just getting started in acting, really, so nothing much in the way of past credits. Wenxia Yu, who plays Qiao, was Miss World 2012, if that counts. Anyway, the idea is that they all dress identically and wear identical platinum blonde wigs in order to confuse people, or possibly distract them with how unnatural those wigs look. And they’re going around robbing members of Arkady’s gang.
As you might guess, this is a dangerous proposition, which is why they need Frank Senior to get Frank Junior’s cooperation. You can pay him to drive, but getting him to fight and such, as he sometimes does here, requires a more personal touch, I guess.
Speaking of fights, there’s a long one thrown in the middle that makes no sense and I have to rant about it. I suppose it’s there to show off the fact that Frank can fight, but it’s the most illogical fight scene I’ve ever witnessed and that’s saying something. It starts because he finds himself in a room with a single door that automatically locks for some reason and you need a key to get back out. There are three very large men sitting there playing cards for some reason — you know, like the way trolls or orcs sit around in small rooms waiting for adventurers to try to kill them. This room is under a fancy nightclub, so it’s possible they’re bouncers, but it’s unclear why they aren’t upstairs working since the place is packed. Anyway, one large man has the key Frank needs, so fighting happens. Then, inexplicably, they’re in a hallway which appears to contain an old card catalog like libraries had back in the original Ghostbusters and they all fight there for a while. I think another guy shows up, too. Then they’re all back in the room and they finish up so Frank can get back to the rest of the movie. I couldn’t get any of that to make sense, but maybe you’ll have better luck.
Where was I? I think I pretty much covered the plot, such as it is. One of the bad guys (Yuri) is played by Yuri Kolokolnikov, who was also in Game of Thrones somewhere, etc., though honestly I have no idea if he had any scenes with Ed Skrein. The acting was pretty okay — nothing stellar, but nothing painful, either. A lot of it is set in Monaco and the scenery is all gorgeous, but that only makes up for so much. So let’s say one for the setting and another for the chases and such, because those were pretty good and it was never difficult to tell who was chasing what where, unlike some movies I could mention. I’ll go with two and a half because two seems a bit low, though two and a quarter is pretty tempting. For one thing, it did that whole “Okay, movie’s over — Hah! Just kidding! Pysch!” fakeout at the end, and that’s really annoying.