Matt Schulze worked again? Wow, I'm a little surprised. Schulze's performance in The Transporter--wait, hold on, physical presence might be a more accurate description--is one of the worst things about the film. There really aren't very many good things about it, though, to be fair to Schulze (is he worse than leading lady Shu Qi, yes, but a lot worse, no). It's not really a disaster or a train wreck or a peculiarity, it's just a waste of time.
The biggest culprit is Corey Yuen, who's got to be one of the worst directors ever to make a film released theatrically by a major studio. Even if Fox just picked up Transporter, come on, he's awful. He doesn't understand the script, which might be the biggest problem, if one forgives his utterly lame composition and the rapid-fire editing of the action scenes (even if Jason Statham didn't know martial arts and they created them in the editing, à la Matt Damon in the Bourne movies, it'd be better), the lack of expression is damning. The script has all these fantastic jokes and Yuen is dead to all of them. It's tragic. Tragic.
Statham's great, he and François Berléand are great together. They almost make this nonsense tolerable, then Shu Qi shows up, with writer slash producer Luc Besson objectifying her (and her awful performance) for a prospective American audience.
The Transporter also should not have been shot in Panavision aspect ratio, but good luck with that one.
CREDITS
Directed by Corey Yuen; written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen; director of photography, Pierre Morel; edited by Nicolas Trembasiewicz; music by Stanley Clarke; production designer, Hugues Tissandier; produced by Besson and Steve Chasman; released by 20th Century Fox.
Starring Jason Statham (Frank Martin), Shu Qi (Lai), Matt Schulze (Wall Street), François Berléand (Inspector Tarconi) and Ric Young (Mr. Kwai).
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