For many, Jason Statham’s hard-boiled Frank Martin is the Transporter, given that the British hard man injected the cult action series with a tenacity that saved it from mediocrity. Now that The Stath has moved on to pastures anew, there are a lot of understandable concerns looming over Camille Delamarre’s (Brick Mansions) reboot effort, though the latest trailer and action-packed clip are an effective one-two punch that prove that, above anything, The Transporter Refueled will retain the franchise’s boisterous action sensibilities.
Supplanting Statham in the lead role is newcomer Ed Skrein, who plays a slightly different version of Frank Martin. While enjoying a holiday with his old man in southern France, Frank’s idyllic downtime is unceremoniously upended by a femme fatale and her group of highly-trained, seductive associates, who together convince our protagonist to orchestrate one of the most ambitious bank heists in history.
Taking a turn for the generic, this new footage shows how the cunning group of baddies kidnap Frank’s father (Ray Stevenson) and use him for ransom – the humanity! It’s a plot device that is beyond long in the tooth, and it’s one that only gels with the remainder of The Transporter Refuelled‘s run of the mill set-up; violence, explosions and impossibly attractive women that fail to bring anything new or compelling to the action genre.
The Transporter Refueled launches into theaters on Setepmber 4. It’ll bring together Ed Skrein, Ray Stevenson, Loan Chabanol, Gabriella Wright, Tatiana Pajkovic, Wenxia Yu, Rasha Bukvic, Lenn Kudrjawizki and Anatole Taubman.
Frank Martin (played by newcomer Ed Skrein), a former special-ops mercenary, is now living a less perilous life – or so he thinks – transporting classified packages for questionable people. When Frank’s father (Ray Stevenson) pays him a visit in the south of France, their father-son bonding weekend takes a turn for the worse when Frank is engaged by a cunning femme-fatale, Anna (Loan Chabanol), and her three seductive sidekicks to orchestrate the bank heist of the century. Frank must use his covert expertise and knowledge of fast cars, fast driving and fast women to outrun a sinister Russian kingpin, and worse than that, he is thrust into a dangerous game of chess with a team of gorgeous women out for revenge.
