For many of us, The Transporter series was when we first fell in love with Jason Statham. Itâs when we saw his full action movie potential as he drove, punched, and jump kicked his way into our hearts. The original Transporter trilogy plays out like a superhero film franchise, with its lead character preforming stunts that even The Avengers would have a hard time pulling off. Now, a new Stathamless series of Tranporter films is set to launch. While the lead has been recast with Ed Skrein, there is still hope since legendary producer Luc Besson is still on board and handling the filmâs story.
The good news is, the newly released trailer actually looks pretty good. Thereâs tons of action and the expected one-liners; it looks like a lot of fun. The title, The Transporter: Refueled, is just the right amount of ridiculous as well. Time will tell whether Skrein can serve as a worthy replacement for Statham, but he seems to have the chops (literally) in the brief snippets we get here.
The best moment of the trailer comes when a presumably bad dude calls Ed Skrein a âJohn Wayne-typeâ and says that he should let things go. Ed replies, âThose were the old days… now we hold grudges and get revenge.â Good stuff. Iâm also keeping my fingers crossed that they decide to bump the film up to an R rating, although the stated June 19th release date makes that seem unlikely (R films rarely get the big summer openings).
All in all, Iâll hesitantly be checking out The Transporter: Refueled. It doesnât have Statham, which makes it a hard sell, but if it packs in enough insane action it might be worth a trip to the theater. No word yet on whether Skrein will have a scene where he covers himself in oil and attaches bike pedals to his feet.
He is too cocky, part of the reason that Statham was so good in this role is that he was good, he knew he was good, but he wasn’t arrogant about it, he was all business. This guy feels like he is fooling around too much, just get the job done.