by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

While he once helmed some truly great flicks, such as La Femme Nikita and The Fifth Element (well, I liked it...), French filmmaker Luc Besson has in recent years devolved into a sort of overtanned, Riviera Roger Corman. Stepping back to merely producing and a bit of scriptwriting, Besson initially showed promise in his change of pace with the wacky Taxi films. That didn’t last long, as he tumbled into a rapid turnover of corny, sub-par trash like Kiss of the Dragon and Wasabi. The dreadful The Transporter fails to break the cycle of lameness.

With the chic, sunkissed Côte d’Azur as a backdrop, The Transporter deposits Guy Ritchie regular Jason Statham in the role of an ex-military man who applies a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy to his business of delivering questionable payloads for oily, moneyed criminal types. Things go awry when he discovers that the “package” in his trunk is the fetching Lai (Taiwanese starlet Shu Qi). Obviously, the bullets, bombs and bared knuckles are soon flying.

To his credit, Statham holds his own as an action hero, and the action’s okay, I guess (Hong Kong director/fight-choreographer Cory Yuen, a frequent Jet Li collaborator, sees to that). But Statham’s delivery is strictly grim and stoic, utterly without humour. What’s particularly galling is that Besson had this script custom-made for Statham, who’s a remarkable comedic talent. The cinematic world doesn’t need any more stone-faced tough guys. It does need, rather urgently, actors who can pull off action, romance and comedy with equal aplomb. Statham could still yet become this—if he avoids this kind of nonsense in the future, and steers well clear of sleazy Eurotrash like Besson.

As for Besson himself, I give up. He once gave us gorgeously-designed spectacles that not only challenged Hollywood’s hegemony over blockbuster crowd-pleasers, but beat Hollywood at its own game by making his blockbusters smarter and more stylish. Now he’s just churning out mediocre kung fu B-movies. How the mighty have fallen. :

The Transporter opens Friday, Oct. 11

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