Slick bits can't smooth out "Transporter 3"

"Transporter 3" isn't the one to watch if you were planning on "Milk" and couldn't get in. It's a popcorn-and-meth flick filled with beat-downs and car chases — shallow, preposterous, slick and fun.

Frank Martin (Jason Statham) gets stuck with a job he doesn't want: transporting Valentina (Natalya Rudakova), the exotically beautiful, freckled daughter of a Ukrainian EPA official who's being blackmailed into signing something not terribly beneficial for the environment. The gimmick: Bad-guy Robert Knepper (T-Bag in "Prison Break") fits Martin with a metal bracelet that'll transport him to Kingdom Come — in little pieces — if he moves more than 75 feet from his car.

This leads to some outrageous bits that include a frantic bike chase as someone steals the car, and a clever solution when Martin drives it over a bridge and looks like he's got the choice of either drowning or blowing up. Not to mention landing it atop a moving train.

We're not talking Bond or Bourne here. The elaborately choreographed fantasy action usually pits Martin against multiple adversaries at once and more often than not involves his shirt getting pulled off. In fact, he's also master of some sort of clothes-fu, using his jacket, tie and shirt as weapons. (Thank veteran action choreographer Cory Yuen, who directed the first "Transporter" in 2002.)

Producer and co-writer Luc Besson (director of "La Femme Nikita," producer of "Kiss of the Dragon" and parkour-action "District B13," which you must rent immediately) has cranked out another enjoyable if not particularly memorable installment, with first-time director Olivier Megaton. (Expect "bomb" cracks from Shalit-esque critics who didn't like it.)

Cool, dry of delivery and in shape to do most of his own action, Statham is always watchable. However, the choppy editing sometimes makes the action hard to follow. And Knepper's snakelike delivery — I'd like to hear him recite "Three Blind Mice" — makes him an apt villain.

During their violent road trip, Martin begins to fall for Valentina, which is more unrealistic than any of the stunts. She's petulant and irritating — a scene in which she forces Martin to strip before she'll give him back his keys is painful. And Rudakova's inability to act has a synergistic effect with the bad dialogue.

"It's not dying you are afraid of, it's living," she tells him, woodenly.

No, that's not it at all.

Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com