The Transporter 2

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Summary:
Frank is a Transporter.  He will deliver a package with no questions asked.  This time around, he transports a rich family's kid to and from school as a favor for an acquaintance. It's the last day on the job when a team of baddies try to kidnap the boy, and of course, Frank then proceeds to kick a lot of ass.

Review:
I have to say that I thought the first Transporter delivered the goods in the entertainment department. Statham was rad, the fight choreography was outstanding, it had a great soundtrack and the supporting characters were charming in their own right. Yes, I love Qi Shu. So anyways, I was looking forward to just as much fun with Transporter 2. Unfortunately, this fell into not only the bad elements to a lot of sequels, but also managed to do WRONG what the first one did so right.
Instead of a BMW, Frank has an indestructable Audi A8, which can nearly fly, bust through solid concrete, is impervious to bullets and bombs... and still never gets a scratch on it.
Frank himself has turned into an even more indestructable fighting machine. This time around, he can walk to someone and catch up, even though they're running from him as fast as they can go. He can jump off of 20 foot ledges, and start walking again just like the Terminator. He has a seven foot vertical jump from standing position. He can also dodge bullets! Once you see him driving his Audi, find an impossible ramp off the edge of a dock, flip upside down and scrape the bottom of his car onto the hook at the end of a crane to tear the bomb off of the bottom, and then flip back forwards safely onto solid ground again, you can't help but know that there is no human creature on the planet that can keep up with Frank Martin. At this point, I can't keep up either.
I was doing alright with the silliness of it all until that point. The opening scene was fun, where he beats up three or four guys and a girl dressed like a porno-schoolgirl slut. I especially enjoyed the nifty neckspin trick with the butterfly knife. I also suspended disbelief enough when he was at the dentist's office, and used a door to block bullets, could run through walls and doors like they're paper mache, and still survive nearly the whole floor exploding all around him without even getting a scratch.
What pissed me off was the retarded finale on an airplane that flips, twists, and stalls in the air, lands full-force into the water, and yet nothing happens to Frank. The wings don't even rip off beforehand, topped with the shoddiest fake airplane I've seen in a movie since the opening scene of Airplane!.
Our main villain is introduced to us as he's battling against four opponents, and he is able to duck out from under his mask like an Uberninja and defeat all four within 30 seconds... yet in the end, he can hardly even give a challenge to Frank. But then again, Frank is the Terminator this time around, so who could blame the guy for failing?
Kate Nauta as Lola is not a worthy opponent. She wears underwear almost the whole time, and doesn't know how to wear mascara right. Not only that, she's really ugly. Not even a hot ugly. She's actually just a retread of Brigitte Nielsen, who you might remember as being the scary-as-hell manly monster in Beverly Hills Cop 2, Cobra, or even better, Red Sonja. The final fight between her and Frank is also a major letdown. She dies too quickly, and very dumbly.
There were some decent scenes here and there, including the clever use of a firehose, and most of the major car chase against dozens of police cars was pretty cool. Hey, I even dug him flying from the parking lot across a street to another building. I didn't dig four bullets exploding a helicopter, or the way he got DOWN from the building.
Let's not even worry about the storyline itself. The parents of the poor kid are having marital issues, and we get a lot of painful exposition through many of the horribly dramatic moments. I don't care about the bad drama so much, though. We also get the return of Inspector Tarconi, coming to Florida for vacation. He was great in the first movie, and sadly they threw him in in the sad hope that fans of the first one will enjoy the connection. I didn't enjoy it, it was not needed, and it pissed me off that they just HAD to get him in the movie because it wouldn't be a true sequel without him. Whatever.

I was hoping Transporter 2 would be just as much fun for me as the first one. Strangely enough, the sequel is exactly what I thought the original was going to be. It's a way over-the-top action movie that is so unrealistic that even James Bond would look sideways at a few of the moments. That's saying quite a bit, because Bond is a total dumbass in the action department. Expect James Bond with Transporter 2, and don't expect the firmer 'realism' of the first one with this sequel. Maybe you'll end up liking it more than I did. I was obviously disappointed, though.

GRADE: D+

Reviewed 9/3/05