This time we also get a villain with legitimate screen presence and malice in Gianni (Alessandro Gassmann). But its his slinky, S&M-themed right-hand-woman played by Kate Nauta who leaves a real impression. She was rightly featured in most of the movie’s marketing. (It’s a shame her death is so abrupt and haphazard.)

Everything about Transporter 2 embraces a sense of fun, losing some of the action seriousness of the original but embracing a free-wheeling giddiness. This is exemplified by the change in setting from Paris to South Beach. The action sequences lean in on wacky, heightened concepts rather than nitty-gritty melee and gunplay.

The movie traffics in on over-the-top, prop-themed action segments, with no use for silly things like “plot.” There’s a great bit involving watermelons as boxing gloves and a mini-masterpiece of a comic fight scene built around a firehose. A couple of the car stunts are so brazenly ridiculous that I gasped in delight at the audacity. Statham plays chisel-jawed Superman to deadpan perfection.

There are far too many perfunctory and half-assed bits for this to ever verge anywhere near masterpiece territory (though my heart pleads the opposite). A plot thread about an antidote to a plague basically vanishes, and it’s so knowingly stupid as a film it’s impossible to take seriously. It’s just cinematic cotton candy.

But Transporter 2 is, to me, an outstanding specimen of cinema, perfect for a junior in high school. I refuse to use the term “guilty pleasure” because seventeen-year-old me felt no guilt in enjoying this. Nor do I today.