*** Official "THE TRANSPORTER" Review Thread (1 Viewer)

[Robert Crawford]

This thread is now the Official Review Thread for "The Transporter". Please post all HTF member reviews in this thread.
Any other comments, links to other reviews, or discussion items will be deleted from this thread without warning!
If you need to discuss those type of issues then I have designated an Official Discussion Thread.
Crawdaddy

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Why, oh why? I am such a sucker. I don't want to waste any MORE of my time on this film, but I owe it to my friends here to at least say "Buyer Beware"!
I'd rather eat seven dollars than spend it on the matinee movie ticket for The Transporter. I wasn't expecting much, and I got a few decent action scenes. But nothing else. It wasn't enough. One long game of one-upsmanship..."wouldn't this be cool? wouldn't this be awesome? wouldn't this be badass?" Too bad NONE of it made any sense. Lame villain(s?) = lame action film.
Take care,
Chuck
Ahh, yes...the rating. 2/10 - it f'ing sucked

 

[Chris Harvey]

Reposted from my review in the now-discussion thread:
I like movies where cars are driven really fast. I like movies that take place in Europe. I like movies that take place in Europe and where the actors actually speak like they're from the countries they're supposed to be from. I like movies where European cars are driven really really fast through European streets with the actors really talking like they're from the places they supposed to be.
And kung fu. Especially kung fu.
I like a moment or two (no more) where you cry out "Yeah, right!" in happy disbelief. Where every bullet has a tracer. Where a man can live in a gorgeous seaside house in France on "my Army pension", and people believe him. Where your sweater can be a deadly weapon. Where the women are beautiful and willing to sleep with you "in exchange for the inconvenience".
As you might have guessed, I had a blast at THE TRANSPORTER. A fun way to waste 90 minutes.
Grade: B
P.S. If the above doesn't float your boat, if you can't accept that a car can drive off an overpass onto a car-transport passing by on the street below, if you can't accept that a man can dive out of a plane and parachute with pin-point accuracy onto a container truck driving on the freeway below, then I suggest you stay away. You really won't like THE TRANSPORTER, and will probably be actively annoyed.
I had a great time.

 

[Jay Rodriguez]

I thought the action scenes were great. Too bad the movie was a turd. Seriously, the woman and her dad weren't played well at all. And how does she climb into the back of the car, while still tied to the chair?
This could have been a great movie. This should have been a great movie. Unfortunately, I can't reccomend it. Wait and rent it.

3/10

 

[Jason Wilcox]

this movie was so bad! ok..it might be possible for a car to go off an overpass and land on that trailor if it was done perfectly....but it isn't possible to get the car 4ft off the ground by hitting a small curb in order to clear the concrete barrier on the side of the overpass. another dumb thing is that he has two sets of scuba goggles and flippers when he was supposed to be a loner.

 

[EricW]

while i HATED Jet Li's Kiss of the Dragon, another stylish no-brains kung fu actioneer, i actually didn't mind The Transporter. while it wasn't a great movie by any stretch, and i won't watch it ever again, it was a nice 90 min distraction.

 

[Nelson Au]

This was a fun diversion, and yes, it is no Academy Award winning material. And I agree with Roger Ebert, it started out with a lot of promise and the set up with the get away sequence at the start of the film that set's up the rules of The Transporter. Then it went down hil.

The best part of the film, the humor and the French detective who dogs the Transporter. He was the best thing in the movie.

The funny thing is the audience I saw it with was the target audience. Twenty something guys and girls, some middle age, some older some younger at the larger Silicon Valley multiplex. Lot's of groans at the Steven Segal trailer, like "I thought he was dead" remarks. To "yeah Right!" comments during some of the fight and car action sequences, but everyone was in the right attitude. This is a no brainer actioner, with some bad acting and questionable physics. A quilty pleasure DVD I bet. Maybe the DVD will include that sequence that was cut out, or I missed it where the Transporter deflects a missle with the metal tray?

The audience did applaud when it ended! So it was a good time had at the movies.

Nelson

 

[Jon Strong]

At points the music reminded me of a porn, and at others a "Blue Planet" documentry on whales.

The oil fight
was awesome. The ending sucked. If you're gonna make a movie like this, at least give it a last line to leave on!

The dad really sucked.

Could a door actually fly off like that? And, yeah, the tracer's REALLY got to me.

Um, what else...oh! I'm glad they took out the blocking-the-rocket shot from the trailer, and why is it the first two rockets didn't blow the whole house like the last
?

The chinese/japanese/whatever girl had a Nice Ass, though. :b

What else...oh yeah. It Sucked.

 

[Nick Graham]

I usually don't like movies of this ilk (such as Kiss of the Dragon, which shared a lot of this film's major off camera players). Having said that, I really enjoyed this one. First thing's first. Don't go into this film expecting the action and/or chase scenes to give any credence to the laws of physics, the laws of plausibility, or even Murphy's law. If you go into a movie like this trying to apply logic to anything whatsoever, you are not the type of person who should be spending money on this film. Also, if you go into this expecting a smooth flowing plot with minimal plot holes and an adherence to reality as we know it, you also are not the type of person who should be spending money to see this. I'm not attempting to discredit anyone's opinion here, just stating that not all movies are made for everybody.

Now that I have that out of the way, I'll say this.... it surprised me how much fun I had in this movie. The great chase sequence at the beginning hooked me in, and Jason Statham kept me into the movie for the duration. This guy is just MADE for this type of movie. While Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson seems to be zapped of all of his considerable charisma once the director yells "action", and Jet Li tries the impossible by trying to get you to rally behind him when he has broken English and horrible scripts (I'm speaking of his more recent American flicks here) working against him, Statham is magnetic. Take the look, the deadpan delivery, and the ability beat the crap out of people over and over without letting it get TOO monotonous, and we have Hollywood's official Next Big Action Star, should he choose to take that route. I can honestly say I should have hated this flick, and had it been starring anyone else, I likely would have. At the risk of sounding a little TOO into Statham that, I will also concur with Jon's comments on Qi Shu's backside.

Anyways, the plot is typical Luc Besson, the fight choreography is pretty slick *rimshot*, and all the stars are likable, from the awesome Statham to the hot Qi Shu to the underutilized-but-makes-the-most-of-what-he-has villain Matt Schulze. This isn't a flick for everybody (as you can tell by some of the previous reveiws in this thread), but it manages to rise above the standards of it's ilk enough to merit the $5.25-$7.25 of an action fan.

 

[Ken Chan]

he has two sets of scuba goggles and flippers when he was supposed to be a loner.

What, he never has company over?
Now, I usually don't agree with Richard Roeper, but he had a point when he said this is what XXX was supposed to be. I wouldn't go quite that far, but the action sequences, especially that first car chase, had more energy and zip than anything in XXX. Here, the plot was definitely a little less coherent, and the Chinese and French accents didn't help. XXX was pretty straight-forward, but that submarine thing at the end was embarrassing low-rent Bond stuff.
Did Kiss of the Dragon have some kind of car chase? Jet Li's fight sequences probably don't require as much cut-editing to look good, but Jason Statham has him beat in terms of physique and presence in an English-language action film. And I like Bridget Fonda in general, but I'm not sure if she wasn't just kind of annoying (Jet Li a fish out of water in France, and she's a fish out of water in a kung fu film). She certainly talked more than Qi Shu.
//Ken

 

[Mike Blais]

sniff....sniff...pure cheese and I loved it Good way to waste my sunday afternoon.

 

[LennyP]

Well I've been praising it as my next fav movie to be after Ecks vs Sever and after just seeing it half an hour ago I must say I'm disappointed.
I do like to build myself up a lot for movies I anticipate and probably have unrealistic expectations from them and so they obviously don't deliver like The Transporter but Ballistic did overcome all of them and more, yet I wasn't satisfied with this one.
Written and produced by the director of Leon and The Fifth Element, with the best British actor I'm aware of and with Asian director and a girl, and that trailer, I thought it'd be kick-ass. And admitedly some scenes were, like the great opening car chase and Transporter getting pissed off and knocking the door in and proceeding to kick everyone's ass, as well as the original oil fight which I haven't seen in any other movie, but there is virtually no plot, yet so many things going on and crammed into 90 minutes that it's signature Luc Besson yet something got messed up because of so many nationalities and influences, the whole movie is all over the place.
Oh and the music, unlike in Ecks vs Sever where it is most excellent, both the songs and the score, here it's mostly out of place and distracting, sometimes annoying and spoiled some scenes.
I will still get the DVD as a "guilty pleasure" because it's still a fun way to spend 90 mindless minutes while munching on a sandwich, btw, I'm hungry.
:star: :star: /5

 

[Bruce Hedtke]

A good time killer. Too bad there was such stiff and hollow dialogue that distracted from the action sequences, which were well filmed and energetic. The dialogue was so flat that you could have removed it entirely and still ended up with the same film, and gotten just as much enjoyment out of it. Dumb movie, bad dialogue, no character developement, cardboard villians...and one hot Asian...Ok, so I liked it!
The Transporter-:star: :star: :star:
Bruce

 

[Luis S]

Ill admit I was skeptical at first,but I gotta admit this movie rocked! A good effort,and time better spent than watching that godaweful "XXX" This movie simply delivered what I expected no more no less.I was entertained and saw someone who could be the next big action star,that oil fight was absolutely badass.Pretty cool cant wait for the DVD
Luis S

 

[Elizabeth S]

The great chase sequence at the beginning hooked me in, and Jason Statham kept me into the movie for the duration. This guy is just MADE for this type of movie. While Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson seems to be zapped of all of his considerable charisma once the director yells "action", and Jet Li tries the impossible by trying to get you to rally behind him when he has broken English and horrible scripts (I'm speaking of his more recent American flicks here) working against him, Statham is magnetic. Take the look, the deadpan delivery, and the ability beat the crap out of people over and over without letting it get TOO monotonous, and we have Hollywood's official Next Big Action Star, should he choose to take that route. I can honestly say I should have hated this flick, and had it been starring anyone else, I likely would have. At the risk of sounding a little TOO into Statham that, I will also concur with Jon's comments on Qi Shu's backside.

I totally agree -- something about Statham just made this work for me as a guilty pleasure. I normally hate brainless action films ("xXx" was AWFUL) but I enjoyed this one. I think the key point for me is that Yuen KNEW it was all implausibly over the top and silly, and it had that tongue-in-cheek attitude to it.
I didn't care about Shu Qi's backside, however. I will admit she was less annoying than in some of her HK films.