Score: 2/5
“The Transporter: Refueled” doesn’t transport viewers to anything worth remembering.
The film falls short, even for fourth film expectations.
“The Transporter: Refueled” tells another story about Frank Martin’s life as a transporter, someone who works as a driver for various jobs delivering packages and driving people to wherever they need to be driven that require his expertise.
The difference between this film and the other three preceding movies is that Jason Statham has been replaced with Ed Skrein as Frank Martin, which isn’t a bad casting choice but changes the character entirely.
This film’s story follows four former child prostitutes seeking revenge on the kingpin that ruined their lives, Arkady Karasov (Radivoje Bukvic). Martin is initially hired to drive Anna (Loan Chabanol) and “two packages,” which turn out to be her accomplices in robbing a bank, to safety.
Martin falls deeper into Anna’s plot when her team kidnaps his father and forces him to help. Martin agrees because the girls poisoned his father, and he needs to help them to get the antidote. The film follows Martin assisting the women in robbing Karasov’s former partners of their money and pinning it on him.
The film’s special effects are good at some points and terrible at others. Very little computer-generated imagery is used, and the film benefits from real stunts.
The main issue with some of the effects is that they are unbelievable. There are points in driving sequences where cars will flip over other cars in ways that are clearly done with stunt ramps, removing the audience from the experience.
There are also scenes in the movie that only serve the purpose of showing off the fact that Martin drives an Audi. These scenes could easily be cut and put into Audi’s next commercial.
The main problem with the movie is Martinhimself.
In the first three movies, Martin is a meticulous driver with his job boiled down to a science. There are scenes where he gets the exact weight of the packages he has to carry and the number of people he will be driving to prepare his car for the weight distribution.
Those are followed by scenes of him modifying his car with tires and shock absorbers to make the car handle the way he likes in the most dangerous situations. He also has three rules that he sticks to, and, if any of the rules are broken, he leaves the job. In this film, all of those preparations and rules go out the window immediately, making Martin appear to be a haphazard and unprofessional driver.
Another aspect of Martin’s character that changed entirely in the film is his lone-wolf mentality.
In the original trilogy, little is known about Martin’s background. There are no mentions of family to be heard of. In “The Transporter: Refueled” Martin is living under the shadow of his father and constantly trying to impress him. While Frank Martin Sr. (Ray Stevenson) is a great character in the film, he is only there to tie Martin Jr. to the team of robbers.
The entire issue of Martin’s personality could have been fixed if he would have been a different character entirely. There is no reason that someone else could not do the same job Martin does and instead of making a new entry into the series, this film should have been a spinoff. This movie following the job of a different character would have made this a decent film.
“The Transporter: Refueled” is a decent action film with a major character problem.
The movie goes against what the Frank Martin of the previous three films stood for and how he carried himself. The character that many moviegoers loved is poorly represented, and fans of the franchise will not be happy with the character’s misrepresentation.