What exactly is the point of a Transporter movie without Jason Statham? Sorely missing the oil-wrestling legend whose balletically self-aware persona was the series’s key selling point, this reboot winds up looking like a cross between an Audi S8 commercial and a naff 80s Robert Palmer video. Upcomer Ed Skrein (Ajax in the forthcoming Deadpool) wrestles with the thankless task of filling Statham’s suit, transporting a coterie of bewigged platinum blondes around the French Riviera as they wreak hi-tech revenge on the vicious pimps who once exploited them. Ray Stevenson adds a little dramatic heft as the randy, ransomed father whose safety drives his son to put the pedal to the metal, leading to inconsequential car chases with bikes, cop cars, and – most notably – an aeroplane. The sub-Fast/Furious stunts are efficiently staged but the fight scenes lack personality, as indeed does the entire film. Transporter Refuelled? Make that “unleaded”.
