There’s only one shaven-headed English action hero who can anchor a trilogy revolving around an ass-kicking protagonist who makes their living ferrying dangerous cargo, and as The Transporter Refueled made abundantly clear, it sure as hell wasn’t Ed Skrein.
The 2002 original inadvertently gave rise to an entire subgenre that’s still going strong more than 20 years down the line as the first-ever mid-budget actioner to feature Jason Statham in the lead role, something that’s long since become his bread and butter.
The Transporter trilogy was hardly groundbreaking or even all that great if we’re being honest, but they did the job for anyone looking for nothing more than lightweight punch, stab, and shoot ’em ups that allowed Statham to cut loose and do what he does best. Somebody somewhere figured that it was the brand making it so popular, though, which proved to be a hilariously misinformed decision.
Skrein was named as the new Frank Martin, with plans for an all-new Transporter trilogy announced, which ended up going up in a plume of embarrassing smoke when Refueled under-performed at the box office and was savagely beaten into a state of near-death by critics and audiences, who couldn’t have been any more scathing in their assessment that when it came to the franchise, it was Statham or no dice.
Even the worst action movies have habit of rearing their heads on Netflix, to be fair, and it was only a matter of time before it was The Transporter Refueled‘s turn. Sure enough, FlixPatrol has named it was one of the newest additions to the platform’s worldwide watch-list, but you’re exponentially better off revisiting the Statham trio instead.