Each Day, A Film:
February 3rd 2012 (Retrospective)
What happens when you keep a bundle of features from both the first, French film, then add in and strip out the Americanisation process, is a metaphor somehow connected to engines that my brain can't rightly process right now, but it's something like stripping out the engine from a BMW and putting it into a Chrysler before junking the Chrysler - except for the wing mirrors - and going back to the BMW.
Yeah, that was kind of laboured, as metaphors go. But the trailer is both amazingly honest and intertextual;
Honest because yes, the majority of the film is Jason Statham punching things and then exploding, although not because Jason Statham punched them - even if that's probably 100% possible. Intertextual because of, all things, The Stooges, whose I wanna be your dog was last heard - for me, at least - in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, featuring, yes, Jason Statham in needless italics.
In a funny kind of way, Transporter 3 is preferable to the second one because, as mentioned above, it's honest about what it's trying to do and the formula it has to stick to, and throws in exploding bracelets for fun just because it can. It also inspires people, apparently, to set scenes from the film to The Pet Shop Boys.
And how could that possibly be a bad thing?
Now, I'm more than willing to admit that these recent journal entries have been light on critical criticism and heavy on general talkage, and there's a reason for that; criticism of the Resident Evil films is like driving a knife through jelly; there's no challenge, and it gets you thrown out of kids parties.
There's all sorts of opportunities, however, to talk about The Transporter. Let's start with the sexuality issue. In The Transporter, Frank is portrayed as fairly heterosexual - oxygen-stealing-man-kissing aside - because he's willing to get it awn with Shu Qi, who then makes him cakes.
Let's not get into the whole Oedipal and Post-Oedipal debate there, because, frankly, I don't need the uncomfortable Film Theory debates about traditional gender roles. In Transporter 2, Frank is now apparently "the first gay action hero!" according to the director, although this does lead to my favourite interview quote for a long time, when Leterrier says "I was sick over the weekend and my 2 Transporters were on, so I watched them and in fact they aren't that gay", as if they might be, say, between 28% gay and 45% gay at any one time, but never over the 50% mark.
So now, in Transporter 3, Frank gets to refuse the advances of an amorous, spoilt, drug-taking and drinking Ukrainian and also refute his homosexuality with the addition of an unwanted 'the', for mild comic effect. Remember, he is not the gay.
For me, there also felt like there were these shades of The Bourne Identity hanging around which weren't present in the first film, in their journey across Europe being tracked - but maybe that's just because, like it or not, the times they are, as always, changing.
Here's the major thing; if I ever make a feature length film - a prospect looking more and more difficult and fraught with annoyance as time goes on - I would like it to be close in character to Transporter or Transporter 3 because, like westerns - many of which I love, but haven't got round to talking about them yet - at least the Transporter films are honest about what they want to deliver and then go on and deliver it as well, with some extra explosions thrown in for fun.
So if there's a lack of informed critical thinking about the film, it's because there's no need for it; the film does exactly what it wants to do and pretty much what you - if you're that fabled ideal viewer - want it to do as well. I'm not sure there's many films which you can say that about, because a lot of films promise and don't deliver or don't even promise and still try and fail to deliver, whereas...
... Oh god, you can actually feel the pun building up at this point, and I can only apologise because it literally just occurred to me, but while I have you captivated with this long run-on sentence we may as well keep it going for as long as possible just to avoid what's coming and say did you try one of those After Eight mint McFlurries while they were around because damn they were oddly nice, I mean you wouldn't expect it to necessarily work but I suppose it's just mint ice cream and at the end of the day you can't go wrong with that and yes this is just going on and on because I'm trying to avoid the final pun but I guess it's like a sticking plaster, we may as well tear it off and get it over quickly -
Unlike other films, The Transporter [series] delivers.
I get the feeling that I should have taken my sunglasses off while delivering that line.
No comments:
Post a Comment