Things get fudgy when the ladies kidnap our hero’s daddy, Frank Martin, Sr.

As a result, a quartet of similarly styled call girls (no need to list them, they have no personality or individual character traits) steal some of his money and want the newest Frank Martin (Ed Skrein) to “transport” them. We are (naturally) dealing with an Eastern European baddie (Radivoje Bukvić) whose thick accent and rough ways merge with a lack of legitimate security checks in the French Riviera that allow him to take over the prostitution side of crime. There are other overly familiar elements here, too, issues that turn the potential into something pitiful. He lives by a set of strict rules (which always end up being violated), he never lets things get persona (ditto) and he tries to stay out of the “big picture” trouble that always seems to follow him wherever his latest assignment or mission takes him. The title character makes his living as a “transporter” of “goods” for various nefarious folks. Creator Luc Besson worked behind the scenes (as he did on the previous three films and the recent TV series) while turning the directing chores over to one of his faithful auteurs, Brick Mansions’ Camille Delamarre. It’s another installment (a prequel, for a proposed new trilogy, yawn) in the successful international action series.

They’re calling it a Transporter film, but by doing so, The Transporter: Refueled has a lot to live up to.

The transporter refueled movie full