We all love Jason Statham. He’s awesome. Most straight men would pay good money to make out with Jason Statham’s head. It’s a pity, then, that he will be absent from The Transporter Refueled, a sequel-ish to the Statham series.
In case you missed it, here’s a trailer for The Transporter Refueled. Watch it, or watch it again. Take a look at the tone.
Here is why you might be a little cautious about it:
For one, Jason Statham really defined himself as one of the world’s last action heroes with the Transporter movies. Most younger action heroes of the modern age tend to be wispy, feminine, and given strength from special effects. Statham stood apart from that. He was, and is, genuinely and unforgivingly masculine. He’s the only real “tough guy” working in movies (aside from, arguably, Vin Diesel). I look at people like Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth, and I see models. I look at Statham and I see a fist. We’ll see if this new guy, actor Ed Skrein, can pull off the Statham toughness (in the same role, mind you), but I remain skeptical.
For another, this new one looks sleek and slick and shiny. It’s all about tech and well-polished cars. The Transporter movies were plenty slick (they are all Luc Besson product after all), but they had an appealing cheap, rough-and-tumble quality that set them apart ever so slightly from their peers. I can’t see these new ones featuring a half-naked oil fight.
Lastly, it’s too heterosexual. The first two Transporter films featured, undeniably to the attentive viewer, a gay hero. It was heavily implied, nearly stated explicitly, that Frank was gay, and it was just an incidental part of his character. Indeed, his sexuality served as a clever subversion of certain action movie tropes; the offered “prize” of a sexy lady was no motivating factor for him. Sadly, that was undone in Transporter 3, when he boned a chick for funsies. Perhaps this new one will reveal that his straightness was an aberration, but that’s not in the trailer. If there was a gay hero, I would use the trailer to stress that.
The Transporter Refueled will be released in theaters June 19th.
