Sequel to Transporter, Frank forgets own rules

At the end of 2002's The Transporter, it looked as if lead Jason Statham might finally rate some private time with co-star Qui Shu's cute character after 92 minutes of doling out hematomas to the male supporting cast. You could envision the two fooling around to old Barry White CDs or sipping champagne from a shoe. But somewhere on the road from most action movies to their sequels, objects of affection tend to vaporize. And besides, Statham as super-chauffeur Frank Martin really hasn't much of a romantic dimension. More tightly wired than G. Gordon Liddy, he remains, despite fleeting hints of a twinkle in his eyes, the human equivalent of the starch in his shirts that never wilts, even during martial arts dispatchings.

In Transporter 2, Statham is solo as he drives a cute, rich kid to and fro while staving off occasional googly eyes from an underloved mom (Hitch's Amber Valletta). Although not without its entertaining moments, the result is so over the top that we'll never again be able to look at Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning's identical setup in Man on Fire without chortling, reports USA Today.

The "Transporter" movies are sort of like James Bond on crank. Jason Statham stars as Frank Martin, a former special services soldier who now specializes in transporting cargo any kind of cargo from one place to another. Bank robbers, kidnapped bodies, briefcases with bombs, doesn't matter. You pay him, Frank will put it in the trunk of his car and deliver it where you want.

Frank's cargo in "T2" is a little boy named Jack (Hunter Clary). Frank is driving the kid around for a while because the kid's normal driver is sick. So of course the kid becomes the target of an international conspiracy to poison the world's most powerful drug police. Frank couldn't drive just some normal kid around.

Frank becomes aware things aren't normal when somebody tries to apparently kill young Jack.