Transporter 2 - PG-13
Common Sense Note
Parents should know that the film includes incessant violence, at high speeds and in slow motion, both emphasizing the excruciating pain inflicted by professional killers. Characters use foul language, smoke, drink and consume drugs. Women are portrayed in negative sexual stereotypes. One appears drunk as she tries to seduce the hero and others wear very skimpy clothing (one assassin prefers lingerie for her missions). The film includes numerous explosions, car crashes, and a violent airplane crash into water.
Families who see this movie can talk about the moral code that Frank embodies so resolutely. How does Frank's precision represent a relative decency, compared to both the excessive villains and the crass cops? How does the family -- Jack and his parents -- represent the sort of domestic unit Frank both desires and will never have? How does their initial dysfunction lead to lessons on more attentive fatherhood and less reckless motherhood? Why are women portrayed the way they are? Parents of kids learning to drive might also point out the stunts are not to be imitated...and they also may want to address the correlation the movie makes between cars and men's worth.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs
Wild and nonsensical, TRANSPORTER 2 delivers a specific sort of pleasure, mostly by way of observing pain inflicted deftly. Like its clever and cheeky precursor, The Transporter (2002), the sequel boasts elegant choreography by Corey Yuen and a crisp performance by Jason Statham as "professional driver" Frank Martin. Willing to transport just about anything for money, he holds to his firmest belief and number one rule -- "Respect a man's car, and the man respects you" -- and looks a bit bored when forced to show off his deadly skills.
If the stunts are impossible, their speed and brutality are often entertaining. None of the leaps and kicks and broken arms makes any sense, but the movie just doesn't care. And neither do consumers, apparently, as the film's opening broke records -- at $20.3 million, the biggest Labor Day opening ever.
Frank remains defiantly undeveloped. Here he's in Miami rather than the South of France, though they're pretty much the same, populated with gaudy and supercilious rich folks. As the substitute driver for adorable Jack (Hunter Clary), he's especially protective, making sure that the boy doesn't see arguments between his parents, Audrey (Amber Valletta) and Ted Billings (Matthew Modine), a mucky-muck in a United States narcotics agency.
The central crisis is both topical and bizarre: Jack is kidnapped by villains who mean to infect whim with a virus that he'll then transmit by breathing on his dad, and dad will then transmit by breathing all over a conference full of international drug czars. It draws from an assortment of currently circulating fears, from kidnapped children to biological warfare to ineffectual officials to disrupted domestic realms.
The kidnappers include slickly sinister Gianni (Alessandro Gassman) and his psycho girlfriend Lola (current supermodel Kate Nauta). She is elaborately, glossily insane, prone to pulling large automatic weapons miraculously out of her lacy underwear. Frank resists them both with self-assured, often slow-motioned fighting skills, seeming especially disdainful of the sloppy thugs they send to bully him.
As producer Luc Besson has demonstrated in his broad array of action films (from Subway to The Fifth Element to Unleashed), the genre's point is style. Heroes and villains come and go (and are in the end interchangeable), but the look is forever. Frank is precise and resourceful, attentive to details. He keeps his promises, he's relentlessly neat. And he takes just-visible-enough delight in punishing the ugliness of others.
Families who enjoy this movie might also enjoy The Fifth Element, Snatched, and The Italian Job.
Rate It!
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Sexual ContentA brief attempted seduction, a girl assassin in lacy underwear. |
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ViolenceLots of bone-breaking martial arts action, explosions, car crashes, a plane crash. |
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LanguageBrief cursing and slang ("sucks"). |
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Social BehaviorVery bad villains (they want to destroy populations with an airborne virus), and much violence to achieve their ends.Women are sexually objectified. |
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CommercialismProminent car brands (Hummer, Porsche, Ferrari). |
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Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoDrinking, snoking, drug use. |
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