Movie Review: Transporter 2

Well, there's mindless action films, and then there's this. It takes mindless to a new level. There's not much of a plot here - some bad guys try to take out a roomful of drug agents with a virus by infecting a kid, who infects his father, who infects everyone else. There was probably four hundred easier ways to make this happen, but there you are. Once the plot is discovered, none of the "good guys" inform the authorities about it until the infection has been spread, presumably to at least hundreds of people, although that aspect really isn't explored here. And of course, only our unstoppable hero, Jason Statham, can track down the bad guy and get the cure.

So, not much of a plot. Also not much in terms of production. I understand that impossible things are supposed to happen in this universe, but there are two CGI car jump stunts in the first half hour that make the bus jump from Speed seem like documentary footage. Not much joy in the hand-to-hand action either, although I did enjoy one fight late where Statham takes down a dozen men - with a fire hose.

I was all prepared to give this film the requisite two stars, but unfortunately they also threw in a couple of technological goofs that I just couldn't get past. My favorite one: Statham breaks into a security room, finds a picture of one of the bad guys, uploads it to a handy iPod (really?), then uploads it from the iPod to his Audi (really??), then uploads it from the Audi to a random police computer that a friend of his, fresh off the plane from France, happens to have access to (really???), who then uses an unfamiliar search program to locate the identity of the person in the picture in about thirty seconds and get his location back to Statham (really????).

I know, I know: The Rule is "nothing you see a computer doing in a movie is possible." But this one was just too stupid to ignore. It's not really as bad a movie as my other one-star specials this year (like Norbit), but that's what you get for misusing an iPod. One star. 

(Oh and I forgot - the DVD cover has Statham blasting away with two guns John Woo-style. That actually never happens in the whole film. It might have been better if it did.)