“The Transporter Refueled” comes up strong where it counts, with frequent bursts of ludicrously implausible yet coherently directed mayhem. Though a couple of the chase sequences can devolve into a blur of quick cuts, Delamarre displays an assured hand with some of the film’s more inventive setpieces, especially a Hong Kong-worthy fistfight amid a slew of filing cabinets, and an escape through an airport that plays like the best mission the “Grand Theft Auto” series never scripted. The pic even provides one weirdly indelible image, as the Three Musketeers tiptoe through a neon-lit pile of unconscious dancers in a disco they’ve ventilated with sleeping gas.
Working with a narcotically bright color palette from cinematographer Christophe Collette, former editor Delamarre has generally good instincts about when to cut and when to linger slightly longer than usual — though it’s indicative of the pic’s pacing that, when Frank gives a 10-second ultimatum in an early scene, it simply edits out numbers six through one.
Likewise, the film rarely pauses for anything resembling character building or repartee, but when it does, the results are screamingly hysterical. In one standout moment, the villain’s inexplicably loyal favored-girl/henchwoman (Noemie Lenoir) watches security camera footage of the Three Musketeers in matching wigs and dresses, and remarks with an emotionless monotone: “They look exactly the same. You cannot tell them apart.” Shortly thereafter, watching footage of the girls in slightly different outfits: “They are the same girls … different clothes.” A smarter film would have tried to play that line for laughs and gotten nowhere; “The Transporter Refueled” is just dumb enough to make it funny.
