Tuesday, 27 January 2009

Long Live The Franchise!

You may be aware, from other entries on this blog, that I'm a fan of the 'fantastical' type of action movie, where plot and acting ability are secondary to logic-defying action and cool one-liners. I call this genre "Bullshit Action"; not cause the films are crap, but because of the lack of reality in situations. They are generally very fun, despite the lapses in logic, and don't apologise for it.

They used to be produced aplenty in the 80's and early 90's from the movies of Chuck Norris to Arnie to Rutger Hauer to the productions of Joel Silver, like Commando and Action Jackson.

These days "Bullshit Action" is limited mainly to direct-to-DVD (with aging stars like Segal, Van Damme and Snipes) or failed big-budget studio thrillers like Max Payne or Hitman (movies that aren't nearly as intelligent or fun as they would like you to think).

Thank God for Luc Besson. He is the most consistent producer of Bullshit Action today with movies like District B13, Taken and the Transporter series to his name. With stars like Jason Statham and Jet Li, the genre continues with style.

Transporter 3, while not as 'batshit crazy' as its predecessors, is still a fun ride. It's a little slower than the other flicks as it incorpoates a lurve story for Statham. But when the action sequences do arrive, they're memorable with an acceptable dollop of batship crazy in each. And in case I haven't alrady winged about this long enough, these set-pieces are shot and edited more effectively than the recent Bond movie.

I look forward to Statham's Crank 2 in April, as well as Transporters 4 to 10 in the years to come!

1 comment:

sickboy said...

Maybe, although the car chases were horrendously speeded up like a black & white comedy. And they didn't need to be, should just watch the recent Deathproof or go back to basics with Mad Max to see how to do it effectively.

This was the only thing that distracted me from what I already knew would be a great Statham movie.