transporter 3

Oh dear.

If ever there was a franchise that epitomised the 'law of diminishing returns' then it's transporter.

I quite liked the first one. It was a bit silly, but it was also very Luc Besson and the plot pretty much worked.

The second one was not quite as good. There was a confusing angle in terms of the mother and her not being a love interest, but being presented in that way, and the silliness got a bit sillier, but again, the plot basically worked. I mean, there were a few clunky bits and oddities, but it basically hung together.

The third one doesn't even manage to get have a plot that makes sense.

The basic idea seems to be that some Ukrainian politician's daughter is being held hostage in order that he'll sign a contract with a big nasty corporation. The big nasty corporation (boo, hiss) wants to use his country as a dumping ground for toxic waste.

I mean, that doesn't even make sense as a summary. Okay, evil corporations are nothing new, but evil corporations with utterly dumb plans is pretty... unique. Why, for example, can't they simply find another country who'll probably jump at the chance for the money? A corrupt third world regime, for example.

Or if they're so big and evil, why not just dump it in the middle of the ocean? Or simply ship it in disguised as something else and then dump it in a big hole in the ground and bugger off?

And what's with that plan? Kidnap the dude's daughter to make him sign? How stupid are they?

If he signs and gets his daughter back, he just has to hold a big press conference and tell everyone what happened. A contract signed under such a situation would never be legally binding.

So what - they kill her instead? Well he just does the same thing. Or they keep her hostage permanently? How does that work?

No - plain truth is it's daft and non-sensicle. Much like the rest of the film.

Where the silliness was kinda endearing in the previous films, especially in terms of the stunts and action, here it just doesn't help.

I mean, there's a bit where there's a car chase and it's clearly been speeded up. Now this is something of a common thing in Besson films, but here it's like the speeding up machine got stuck in some high gear, because they speed it up to such a degree that it just looks like Benny Hill should run across the road halfway through.

Plus, when they aren't taking daftness to a new level, the chases, fights and stunts come across as being a bit uninspired and dull, tbh.

And don't me started on the girl. She's just about the most annoying woman committed to celluloid.

She starts of petulant (no reason is given) and rapidly reveals herself to be selfish, self-centred and stupid. And then she gets really annoying.

But worst of all we're supposed to believe Statham's character falls in love with her? I mean if he'd had a history of falling for women like her, then maybe it'd be okay, but the girls in the other films weren't like her at all.

It was just plain rubbish.