Transporter 2 (review)

The Transporter was downright adorable, a Maxim-ized cocktail of martial arts, stunt driving, and curiously circumspect sex -- nothing you could get roaring drunk on, more a predinner aperitif with which to toast how absurdly easy it is to entertain boys and young men 13 to 24 years of age. Even star Jason Statham (Snatch), in his sharp black suits and smart driving gloves, was smoothly nonthreatening, for all that he was playing an ex-Special Forces soldier turned mob courier. But that weirdly delicate balance has been thrown out the window for the sequel, which goes to extremes in all directions, from the actual teddy-bear-izing of Statham as he babysits the young son of America's new drug czar (Matthew Modine: Le Divorce) to literally explosive moments of action absurdity -- the bit in which Statham gets rid of the bomb on the undercarriage of his car by flipping the vehicle into the air, scraping it away against a convenient surface, and landing safely to zoom away is sure to live in movie notoriety as the most ludicrous moment onscreen in 2005.