Having survived Tuck Everlasting, I had to chase it with some explosions and kung-fu, so I went to see The Transporter, about which I had few expectations. Those I had were surpassed. This is a great film — for those who like explosions and kung-fu, anyway.

Frank Martin (Jason Statham) is a retired air force pilot, who presumably lives quietly on his pension in the south of France. Actually, he keeps his bank account flush by accepting jobs to transport items in his BMW. Often, the items he is transporting are items the police would be very happy to know about, and not only keeping the items away from the police but keeping himself out of their line of sight can become a rather exciting pastime. Martin lives by three rules: don’t change the deal, no names, and don’t look in the package. Unfortunately, one day he looks in the package and finds Lai (Qi Shu), hands tied behind her back and duct tape over her mouth. He goes ahead and delivers her, but the client then tries to snuff him, so he goes back, beats up a bunch of minions, and rescues her. From this point on, as he and Lai attempt to solve a major problem that she has brought to France with her, we get several really nice explosions, several kung-fu fights in which he beats up a lot more minions, and a delightful container-truck chase up the highway to Lyon, in which Statham, or his stunt double, gets to recap stunts from the truck race in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The two containers being transported contain … ah, but that would be telling.

I would have had higher expectations if I’d known ahead of time that the writing credits belonged to Luc Besson (The Fifth Element, Messenger) and Robert Mark Kamen (also involved with The Fifth Element as well as being the creator of The Karate Kid). But perhaps it’s just as well I didn’t. I was able to enjoy the film much more when it surpassed those expectations.