One 'Transporter' is enough

Way back in 2002, "The Transporter" was a pretty good movie. It had the perfect blend of car chases through scenic France, not-too-crazy martial arts fisticuffs and appropriately interesting characters. It was shot with the finesse of a good martial arts movie and came with the right kind of charm to make it appealing.\nNow picture all of that, and toss it completely out the window. That's "The Transporter 2."\nIt would be a lie to say that Jason Statham "reprises" his role as confidential underworld transporter and ex-special ops man Frank Martin, because very little in this movie actually reprises the original.\nIn theory, the driver Frank (Statham) returns to dish out his fist-and-foot justice to the bad guys, and he is still bound by his own strict code of conduct. This time, all the allure that comes with a European setting is traded in for a pitiful vision of Miami. Here Frank must race and kung-fu through the streets to find the bright purple antidote to an awful, neon-green virus and save a little boy, the city and eventually the world from a Columbian terrorist's (Alessandro Gassman) plan for global domination.\nOr something like that. It seems as though the strategy for plot structure in "The Transporter 2" was just to make it up on the fly, throwing some weak dialogue in between endless martial arts showdowns, shoot-outs and wacky vehicle stunts and chases that actually do get boring after a while.\nThe real failure of this movie is that it is truly artless. Most of the heavy-handed attempts at action sequences fail to create any memorable moments that made the first movie. Remember when we got to watch from inside the peephole as Frank kicked down a door with a running leap in the first one, or when he swung into the cab of a semi from the roof and choked the driver with his feet? You will not see anything as smart or graceful in the sequel.\nBut this is not really an eye-candy movie. The whole film relies far too heavily on its special effects, which in fact aren't that good at all. The only eye-candy you will find here is the villain's lover/personal assassin/Victoria Secret model Lola (Kate Nauta), who never wears anything south of her midriff but her black lace undies and giant sub-machine gun holsters. But she disguises the top half of her body as both a nurse and a cop to avoid suspicion. Clever girl.\nSure, Statham puts out some great fighting and stunt work, and the all-action attitude of "The Transporter 2" might be welcome to audience members who have not seen a Bond movie in a decade. But the film's sheer ridiculousness is just too much to handle.