The Jason Statham dilemma.
I still don't know how I feel about Jason Statham, action star. He's got a new movie "Crank" coming out and he's a man on the edge, much like his characters from the "Transporter" movies. His character, Chev, seems to have been poisoned and much keep his adrenaline up or he dies, kinda like a bio-chemical version of the bus bomb in "Speed".
It's not that he's not a good actor, his turns in "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch" proved that. He certainly has the graceful physicality of the modern action star, but something's still amiss.
It's like the feeling I got drinking strawberry milk as a kid, it tasted like strawberries alright, it just feels wrong.
It looks like I'm not the only one who thinks so, even after the "Transporter" movies, "Crank"'s advertising has begun featuring as his co starAmy Smart, hitching his wagon to her considerable "star power". If there was a emoticon that said "sarcasm" I still wouldn't use it. It certainly doesn't help that he got in the trouble he got into in those flicks because he fucked up at his job "transporting".
I actually watched "The Transporter 2" today, and I think I know what they're going to do. Accepting Statham as a limey Jackie Chan is, by a huge margin, the most believable thing about this movie. This movie makes you stretch the limits of the plausible to level that can best described as "Segal-esqe."
Speaking of the leathery one, Steven Segal used to bristle when people would call him a "martial arts" actor.
"Is Frank Sinatra a martial arts actor because he used it in The Manchurian Candidate'?'"
No, it's because I have a problem with calling you just an "actor" like the problem I have calling Bowlers, "athletes". The "martial arts" qualifier is essential to accept it.
But, god love him, he's made it work for him, there is no way he could been a star any other than beating the living shit of as many bad guys as much as humanly possible while keeping his ponytail in place. He was what ever the movie told him to be, Steven Segal was "Out for Justice", he is, "Above the Law". "Hard to Kill" had his actual wife as his love interest and they displayed the kind of chemistry that got me a "D" in science class.
He can't kick above his waist anymore, but people actually consider him an action star. Is it the irony factor? The smart assed cracks during the movie factor? Sometimes the musky majesty of Segal needs nothing more than to be taken in with out comment... and then quickly coughed back out in fits of laughter.
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