Le Transporteur: Héritage

One man's trash, another man's treasure and all that, scavengers rummaging through garbage are always optimistic about finding something of value. Not here. Before I begin to hack this film to pieces (to find anything of value of course), let's start with an old school adage – Point blame at someone and there's always three fingers pointing back at you. In relating that saying to this fourth installment of The Transporter franchise, as long as cinema goers are dumb enough to pay hard earned money to watch just about anything, then absolute junk will be recycled over and over again. For The Transporter Refueled, that's just the outer layer of decomposition.

With none of the cast and crew from the previous films, Refueled runs on fumes even before it goes into first gear. Replacing Jason Statham as the titular protagonist, Ed Skrein's Frank Martin often says "buckle up". Problem is, the film doesn't budge past the first gear and neither does the Audi A8 that replaces the BMW 7-series, the Mercedes S-class or the Lamborghini Murciélago from the previous films. Very early in the film, the Audi does a cool trick until it immediately dawns on you that a Pontiac Trans Am called "Kitt" did this trick over thirty years ago. And while the previous films were an exhibition of brawn over brain, this pathetic excuse of an action film has neither, nor does it seem to care. Somewhere between an elaborate plan where prostitutes revolt against their pimps, the so called action consists of hand-to-hand combat and three car chases. Blink and you'll miss the third chase – Martin on a jetski versus the villain in a Mercedes G-class…on land! Equally cringe worthy is the father-son bonding (Ray Stevens as Martin's dad) which is as effective as securing a square peg in a round hole. Dig deeper and you'll find that Refueled is not only poorly scripted, acted and directed to such an appalling extent, it's very making is a blatant insult to anyone paying to watch this film. But if you do watch this garbage, don't say I didn't warn you.

If you can sit through it, the stench of vomit lasts about 90 minutes. Unfortunately, cinemas don't come with barf bags like airplanes do, so passing your popcorn bucket to the next person is the only way viewers can relieve themselves of nausea. On the positive side, it must be noted that there's hope for film school rejects. If anything, Refueled is a classic example that any Tom, Dick and Harriet can make a movie. I can just imagine the hiring notice for the fifth film - Apply within, no skill required.

Ed Skrein doesn't hold a candle to Jason Statham in this role, try though he might. The actual plot is not too bad, with I wouldn't say twists and turns, but maybe the odd curved ball, to keep the viewer interested. Many of the stunts are pretty good. Some of the acting, though, is atrocious.

The new Transporter, who comes in the shape of Ed Skrein, has some big shoes to fill taking on a role that helped make Jason Statham a bona fide action star. I've only seen Skrein in one previous film, whilst I've seen nothing from director Camille Delamarre. But I'm certainly more familiar with Ray Stevenson, who plays the father of Frank Miller, a.k.a., The Transporter. In this regard, it's quite obvious that a Connery/Ford father- son dynamic has been sought, which gives the tiniest bit of personality to a film that falls completely flat from the onset and rarely picks up. The story is familiar -- the Transporter gets a job driving a package, the job goes wrong and he's in deep. It gets personal when his father is kidnapped, but with no grit on its wheels and Skrein trying in vain to create a new persona for this character, what it ultimately amounts to is flash cars, sexy girls, suits and stunts, but nothing more. Much like a glorified car advertisement.

It's sad to see this movie flop this bad, really. It really had the huge risk of at least deliver something equivalent of the original trilogy. But doing this movie without any of the previous trilogy's creative minds is really a big mistake. The people behind the creative process for this movie clearly didn't know what they were doing. They only tried so hard to recreate the Jason Statham's Frank Martin persona with the mannerisms and the unique fight sequences. But in doing so they really pitted Ed Skrein with the old Jason Statham performance, on which everyone can really choose who's the winner. Not having Jason Statham is by itself a big burden due to Ed Skrein still fails to live up to the Statham persona. The story also seems very flat, nothing new or unpredictable is being offered by this movie. And the biggest sin is the editing.there are so many editing mistakes that takes away the fun in watching the action scenes. The acting overall is so bad that I don't deign to write about each actors' performances.

Quick background: I like Jason Statham, I thought the first two transporter movies were awesome, but the third one was a let down. And this fourth attempt (without him) is just like the last one. I saw it in the cinema because there wasn't much else going on action wise. So I would only recommend this is if you have ran out of options. I don't think it is as bad as some have put it, as it does have some action, although the fighting leaves much to be desired and doesn't come close to JS skills. And to make it worse, some of it has been hidden! They tried to make up for it all with lots of beautiful women, and it may have worked a little.

In summary, it's just an OK action movie. I wish JS got his act together and made another proper one.