Make it stop

The Transporter

Starring Jason Statham, Shu Qi

Directed by Cory Yuen

…

The Transporter

Starring Jason Statham, Shu Qi

Directed by Cory Yuen

What’s up with action movies these days? Scripts have become little more than thin frameworks stretched around stunts so ridiculous they make suspension of disbelief impossible. Outside of “The Matrix,” there hasn’t been a memorable action film in several years. Unfortunately, “The Transporter” doesn’t change that.

Basically, Frank (Jason Statham) delivers shady packages for shady people. He’s got just three rules – never use names, never change the deal, and never look in the package. When his latest parcel starts squirming, though, he can’t resist. He opens it to find a young Asian woman, Lai (Shu Qi), bound and gagged.

Oh-so-professional, he reseals her inside the package and proceeds to deliver her. The recipients suspect he has peeked, though, so they attempt to kill him, blowing up his BMW in the process.

For the rest of the 90-minute film, Frank beats people up. Lots of people. All we know about him is he’s ex-military, which apparently qualifies him to take down legions of henchmen single-handedly. Beyond that, the plot – something about bad guys selling people into slavery – never really pans out.

The plot isn’t just bad, it’s also pretty much absent. It’s like the ghost of a bad plot. The actors are stranded with jaw-droppingly corny dialogue. The romance is both forced and half-assed – it consists of the leads sleeping together for no reason other than to give us a couple of quick PG-13 underwear shots.

Does that stuff even matter, though? It’s the action that matters, right? Well, the action’s weak, too. The fights and car chases are edited into oblivion – there’s no continuity and as a result, no intensity. The big stunts are ludicrous, more silly than exciting. And the baddies are so cartoonish, there’s no sense of real opposition.

While Statham had a natural coolness in “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” and “Snatch,” he lacks it this time around. Frank is compulsively stone-faced and coldly recites his rules to seemingly everyone – he’s a pretty uninteresting hero.

Even more disappointing is the way co-writer Luc Besson’s career is playing out. He used to direct worthwhile action-dramas like “La Femme Nikita” and “The Professional.” Now he’s scripting low-rent kickfests (he also co-wrote last year’s “Kiss of the Dragon”).

Someone needs to return intelligence and excitement to the action genre – does James Cameron still make films?