Transporter 3 C-

In Theatres, Rated PG-13, 100 minutes
Telegraph for Jason Statham: “The media wants to make you a legit star. Please quit making drivel like this and let them.” Yeah, I get it. The Transporter is a guaranteed payday for Mr. Statham. It’s his series, and, if the nearly sold-out show I was at last night is any indication, this one will rake in big money on a budget. But he’d already make a better Bourne than Matt Damon. He’s heir-apparent to Bruce Willis as the Talented Tough Guy, but he’s a better actor than Willis (and I’m a fan, for the record).

That said, Transporter 3 is pretty bad. The plot is similar to the first two. Statham plays transporter Frank Martin. He guarantees to personally deliver sensitive items on time and intact. That type of occupation generally means rubbing shoulders with some pretty unsavory types. This time around those folks are operatives looking to dump dangerous industrial waste and willing to extort key government officials to do it. The package is Natalya Rudokova, a previously unknown Eastern European import discovered by Luc Besson (writer of the original, and co-writer and producer here) on the streets of New York. That she looks eerily like Besson’s Fifth Element may account for his apparent inability to see her lack of talent. Rudokova is about 18-years-old and could easily pass for two years younger. Her eventual romance with 36-year-old Statham gave me the willies (and yes, Lawyer, irony noted). But, more than that, she’s awful. Her dialogue consists of broken English sentence fragments and lines like, “I want to feel sex time one more time.” That she fuels Martin’s decisions to disregard all his rules as a transporter and give up his idyllic lifestyle in the south of France is incomprehensible. Oh, and if either Frank or his package get further than 75 feet from the car, a bracelet blows them sky high.

Villain Robert Knepper (Carnivale) is the best thing here as a criminal operative in over his head but determined to finish his job. French actor Francois Berleand reprises his role of the local lawman and is solid. The action sequences, the real drawing card in this series, are overdone with too much CGI and camera work so jerky there’s no way to know what’s transpired. An exception is an excellent (if unrealistic) bike chase scene in which Statham grabs a BMX-style trick bike and grinds rails, jumps cars, and generally tears it up.

Overall, nearly unwatchable. C-