“Transporter 3” – A freckled mess.

Have you ever tried to convince yourself that the movie you just saw wasn’t that bad? That’s how this movie was for me. My first thought walking out of the theater was exactly that, no too bad. Fortunately, my brain reactivated five minutes later and I realized it actually was that bad.

Before going any further, you need to know that I have not seen the previous two “Transporter” movies. That means that unlike most of you, I am not bias toward number 3 (everyone says the first movie was great; they’re bias). The only bias I do have is that I like Jason Statham as an action hero. Lucky for me, he delivered a typically likeable performance, so I’ll leave him alone.

I didn’t go into this movie with any kind of expectations. I just wanted to see car chases and explosions and I was not disappointed in that respect. In addition, movies like this always have a girl and a sex scene, which is an added bonus for men (do you really think any women are watching these movies?). For some dumb reason, they insisted it stay rated PG-13, which completely negated the reason for the sex scene and pisses off the men. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if you aren’t going to show us any skin, don’t bother with sex scenes in action movies. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here. I’m not watching movies for sex scenes; I’m just saying that action movies are all about visuals. Why cut out the nudity? I might be able to understand it here; the girl had an impossible amount of freckles (even a weird one on her lip), but it would have been interesting to see if the rest of her body looked like that.

What made me realize this movie was bad wasn’t the girl’s bad acting, which was noticeably bad in an action flick (now that’s talent). It was the sheer nonsense the director and writer were expecting us to believe. The less offensive example of this was the fighting ability of the bad guys. This is typical of action films. The hero can take out a dozen guys with no problem, but has the most difficult time with the boss, who isn’t even half the fighter as his worst henchman.

Another example was the bracelet that exploded if they went further than fifty feet from the car. This wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t gone out of their way to explain to us that it was liquids mixing together, just like the terrorists who tried to take liquids on an airplane. How fucking lame is that? Not to mention, they did the whole binary liquid explosive thing in “Die Hard 3” and it was barely believable then.

The worst example was the invincibility of the car. The car wasn’t some super advanced car you might see in a James Bond flick or even K.I.T.T. from “Knight Rider.” It was just an Audi. Yes, you read that correctly…a fucking Audi. This car was bulletproof, dent proof, dirt proof, water proof, able to fly, and able to regenerate glass. No wonder Statham insisted he drive his own car to transport the goods. Apparently, it was a gift from aliens, probably after he delivered them a pizza in under thirty minutes.

Most of that shit has been in action movies before, but I feel I should explain the glass comment. One of the henchmen steals his car and he gets it back by smashing through the driver-side window. Not five minutes later, the window is magically back in place. Is it too much to ask for a little continuity?

There’s one more power the car had that I forgot to mention; it can manufacture air. I am not making this up. If you ever get a chance, check out the intuiter.com website. They like to explain the impossibility of movie events using physics (trust me, it’s hilarious) and I’m sure they’ll be including this one. Statham drives his car into a lake to escape the bad guys and uses the air in the tires to breathe under water. He doesn’t even put his mouth on the little nozzle; he just eats the air bubbles. Stay with me now; there’s more. He then uses the remaining air to inflate some bags in his trunk and floats his car to the surface. If the tires had enough air in them, why didn’t the car float right away? If you’re willing to accept this as a possibility, you should immediately go home, start your car, and wrap your lips around the exhaust pipe.

If all that isn’t enough to keep you away from this film let me give you the plot (did you really think I’d forgotten the plot?). Company X kidnaps a Ukrainian minister’s daughter to blackmail said minister into allowing Company X to dump toxic waste in the Ukraine. I guess it wasn’t enough for the damn eco-turds to pollute “James Bond: Quantum of Solace.” Now if you’ll excuse me, I think my pizza is here.

Rating: Ask for all but a dollar back. At least the car chases were cool.