  
| 
| ||||||||||||
  EW review: 'Transporter 2' sillyBy Gregory Kirschling  Jason Statham in "Transporter 2." YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS(Entertainment Weekly) -- "Transporter 2" betrays the legacy of the first "Transporter," if such a thing is possible. In that movie (which is actually just decent enough to merit a follow-up), "The Italian Job's" Jason Statham was Frank, a puggish ex-Special Forces commando in the south of France who specializes in high-risk driving jobs (bodies in the trunk, bank robbery getaways) and fights, in a smart black suit, as if inhabited by the soul of a grizzled Asian martial-arts master. Showcased in clever if preposterous action sequences, his superhuman killing skills were imaginatively choreographed and lucidly shot, at least compared to the sequel, which is one of those action movies that flash-edits its fight scenes into epileptic nothingness. Here, Frank is in Miami chauffeuring Matthew Modine and Amber Valletta's 6-year-old, who gets kidnapped and infected with a deadly virus. (The antidote is kept, as most antidotes are, in a glowing purple orb.) In place of the original's straight-faced ridiculousness, this one plays like pure parody. In the best scene, the villain has affixed a bomb to the bottom of Frank's speeding Audi A8. To remove it, Frank rides the car off a ramp and spins a 180 in midair, so that the car is soaring upside down as he scrapes the undercarriage against a dangling construction hook, which, of course, knocks the bomb off the car just as it blows. Feel free to chortle: "T2" is more unintentionally entertaining than many bad movies, and it's definitely a funnier car romp than "The Dukes of Hazzard." Yet we expected more from director Louis Leterrier, fresh off this year's underrated actioner "Unleashed," and co-writer Luc Besson ("The Professional"), whose good-guy/bad-guy wordplay is at the MST3K-ready "Sorry, this flight's canceled!"/"No, you're canceled!" level. The greatest thing about the movie is Statham, a charismatic silent, deadly type who deserves to take the wheel behind a better franchise. EW Grade: C+ 'Underclassman'Reviewed by Lisa Schwarzbaum The loserville teen comedy "Underclassman" is like a student project sloppily cribbed from other kids' notes -- kids who have seen "Rush Hour" and still can't get over how funny it is to stick a noisy black guy in a distinctly nonblack setting. Imagine a mouthy bicycle cop called Tre ("Drumline's" Nick Cannon, a bantamweight Chris Tucker) who goes undercover in a snooty white L.A. prep school to bust a case involving drugs, car theft, murder, and basketball rivalry. (Don't question why a brother who dropped out of high school gets the gig.) Imagine Tre's captain is a blustering Cheech Marin, and that no possible lame joke is left unspoken so long as it involves blacks, Hispanics, whites who can't speak proper hip-hop, and a fat cop preoccupied with his own bowel movements. Imagine the poor grade "Underclassman" will receive. The movie also features a foxy-chica teacher (Roselyn Sanchez of ... "Rush Hour 2"!), who inspires Tre to study, and who is charmed when he hits on her. That this is director Marcos Siega's second toxic high school fable to be released following August's "Pretty Persuasion" is reason to wonder what bad things happened to him back in study hall. EW Grade: D Click Here 
|
| ||||||||||||
| © 2007 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us. Site Map. |
 |
|
to Try 2 RISK FREE issues of Entertainment Weekly
External sites open in new window; not endorsed by CNN.com
Pay service with live and archived video. 
