As the Transporter franchise ran out of box-office steam and gave rise to a TV series, it comes as something of a surprise to find it determinedly rebooted and with an IMAX release as a presumable statement of ambition, but apart from replacing the seemingly-irreplaceable Statham with a younger model, little has changed under the hood. Refuelled is a simple old-school action potboiler, complete with outdated weak Russian villains and literally every female character a prostitute! A stripped-down revenge story is effectively structured but holds no real surprises, the father-son relationship is pleasant fun but hardly Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, and Ed Skrein makes for a competent Frank who is far more likeable as the lead than the trailer suggests. The film looks handsome (the South of France films well), and the action done reasonably well in the current whiplash-edited style, although there could be more of it. This film would love to be a Fast & Furious or Mission: Impossible franchisebuster, but overall this is a low-key, moderately entertaining and distinctly standard third sequel.
No comments:
Post a Comment