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So after hearing about the movie on and off for several years I finally got around to watching Transporter 1 the other night. I was expecting it to be a French take on an American action movie, but about halfway through, I realised it was a French take on both American and Hong Kong style action movies. It wasn't what I'd call good, but it was a decent enough popcorn film. I thought about it and decided that if I were 10 years old I'd probably think it was the best film in the history of cinema.

So tonight, we watched Transporter 2. This time, with my expectations modified to expect a Frenchman's take on Hong Kong action crossed with a videogame. Apparently though, I was way too conservative, since it was really incredibly fucking stupid. They took a bit of Man on Fire and made it into dreck, added Hollywood-reloads, flying cars, and just piles of shit. He beats up bad guys leaving them merely battered and bruised, but snaps the neck of an innocent (as far as we know) guy doing his job. This was just a fucking bad movie. And that's going in with expectations modified after seeing the first one. At one point I decided that it's a combination of a rip-off of HK cinema fights, with preposterous car action scenes that appear to be ripped from comic books written by 15-year old kids trying to make their own James Bond.

Terrible, just terrible.

I have Transporter 3, which I need to watch as well. I'm not looking forward to it. I wasn't expecting this level of tripe.

edit - grammar

Transporter 1 was definitely the best of them.  I'm not sure I even remember 3, although I'm pretty sure I did watch it.  It must have been pretty bad.

Just watched the third one. Overall, I'd call it less outlandish than the second one - which is not to say that it wasn't severely outlandish to the point of fucked, just less so than 2 - But more grating, tedious and annoying. Which is also how I'd describe the addition of the 16-year-old Russian Hooker character.

I'll glance through the extras of the three of them now, possibly watch the commentary to part 1 as suggested in another thread to see just how absurdly full of himself Statham is, then put them away, never to be spoken of again.

The First and Third ones were decent.

I spent most of the second one wondering what kind of crazyass drugs the people directing it were smoking.  2/3 of the stunts in there were so outright over the top or rediculously stupid, I had severe issues suspending disbelief that some of them were actually possible.

My personal favourite scene from the second one however, has to be the one (i think near the beginning) where they get in a firefight in a hospital, and the chick unloads her gun at a guy (cant remember if it was statham or not) who has taken shelter behind a dislodged door (which was wood if i remember correctly).  She fires like a full clip into this wooden door but appearently is unable to penetrate through it to the guy behind.  Fast forward about maybe 4 minutes, and she uses the SAME gun to shoot a helicopter out of the sky.  What did she do? Switch to armor piercing anti Helicopter rounds?  Did she leave her Door Piercing anti stupid rounds behind in the first firefight?

I think some of the rounds did penetrate the wooden door, just not where Statham was hiding. My favourite(!) bit of sheer stupidity was when he  

But yes. The 9mm pistols exploding the helicopter like a HE round from a tank hitting a fuel depot was also very accurate. Not too far off the  :why_so_serious:

I'm a huge fan of that franchise, but I have to admit that two certainly went full retard.

Oh no! there is a bomb under my car! Should I drive over a piece of rubble to dislodge it? No! not cool enough! I shall do a BMW Barrel Role!!!1!

*that stunt was so stupid it does not deserve to be spoilered for anyone who hasn't seen it.

That single scene pushed #2 well beyond my absurdity thresh hold and is why I haven't bothered with 3.

Yeah, ditto, and I like Statham and schlocky action movies.

SAme.  Own Transporter 1 on Blu-ray, but the girlfriend and I couldn't be bothered to sit all the way through 2.  Haven't tried 3.

Have you tried watching Cranked 2?

I bet his head would explode.

What a fun movie.

Really? The zoom-cam with action zoom sound made me turn it off after 5 minutes.

I love Crank 2, but Crank 2 and Transporter 2 are in completely different categories.  The Transporter 2 tries to take itself somewhat seriously, and yet still be completely over the top in completely unrealistic ways.  Crank 2 is basically a video game parody of Crank 1, with everything turned up to 11 intentionally.  It wasn't meant to be taken seriously.

One of the few times I remember a theater audience actually laughing at how silly a movie stunt was. Still liked the movie as goofy fun though.

It's been awhile since I saw the first Transporter but I vaguely remember it as somewhat over the top but still in the realm of action movie physics with a plot that didn't make me groan too badly. Transporter 2 threw out both plot and attempt at "realism" and felt like it took place in a totally seperate universe from the first movie.

Crank 1 & 2 are both cartoons so it didn't cause that disconnect for me.