To be honest, I wasn’t too impressed with what was presented in the most recent trailer for director Camille Delamarre‘s The Transporter Refueled. For starters, the title sounds silly to me and I would have rather much preferred it keep its original ‘Legacy’ title or something more appealing. But apart from that, the trailer itself looks like a series of lessons unlearned from our dear director’s work on last year’s release of Brick Mansions. I couldn’t see the techniques and could only feel the choppy, rickety, Taken-style approach to the action as applied in part by Taken 2 co-star, fight choreographer Alain Figlarz, compared to the Hong Kong aesthetic established by Corey Yuen for the Jason Statham trilogy of yesteryear.
Granted, I haven’t seen the film in its entirety, so further judgement will await until then, or at least until I’ve seen enough clips and trailers to have a broader and more informed opinion. In the meantime, Deadline is reporting the film dated release now pushed back from its June 19 debut to September 4 in order to have a larger window to promote the film and give it the same Fall/Winter release as its predecessors have. I can’t say much about what that will or won’t accomplish, although it could mean some reshoots are underway as well…who knows at this point? All I know is that fans of the original trilogy who’ve grown accustomed to Luc Besson’s earlier devotion to the franchise will be much more critical than they have been, although hopefully this turns out to be decent reboot. Otherwise, don’t say you weren’t warned, Camille. You were.
For better or worse, here’s the latest teaser if you missed it. Ed Skrein stars.
