Statham gives 007 competition in action-packed 'Transporter 3'

Take a tough guy with a cool car and a tendency to solve problems with flashy, over-edited action scenes instead of smart detective skills.

Pair him up with a damaged young woman from the Ukraine.

Pit them both against an uber-villain intent on committing environmental crimes.

You've got "Quantum of Solace."

No, wait!

I mean "Transporter 3."

Yes, "Transporter 3," starring stoical British action star Jason Statham in his third movie as Frank Martin, a delivery agent for clients who need a package shipped anywhere in the world with no questions asked, no names given and no changes ever made to the agreement.

Although the elements of "T 3" sound similar to the current James Bond hit "Quantum of Solace," "T 3" has its own distinct personality and manic appeal.

Where the cartoonlike elements conspicuously stick out in the 007 film's disingenuous return to realism, everything in "T 3" (like its two earlier features) has been fashioned as an outlandishly goofy cartoon where outrageous stunts (Martin gets thrown through a brick wall with no injuries), shallow plot and depthless characters work in harmony to supply unpretentious cheap thrills.

In Oliver Megaton's "T 3," Martin turns down a client's request for a job in France. Mr. Johnson (Robert Knepper) doesn't like the word "no," so he sends some disposable goons to convince Martin to change his mind.

The nimble Martin takes a page from the Bruce Lee defensive strategy by dispatching the thugs one at a time, ingeniously utilizing his wardrobe - jacket, tie and shirt - as deadly weapons.

But he can't win all the time. When he wakes up from a power punch, Martin is wearing an explosive bracelet that will blow up if he ventures more than 75 feet from his shiny black Audi sports car.

Johnson instructs him to transport a couple of mysterious bags in the trunk, and take with him the weepy Ukrainian woman, Valentina (Natalya Rudakova), who sounds as if she has phonetically memorized her English lines just before the cameras rolled.

In a short time, Martin realizes that Valentina is the actual package in an extortion plot so comic-book simplistic that it's not worth the newsprint space to discuss it.

"T 3" is a deliberately silly action movie designed for the 12-year-old boy in all males, specifically in French producer/co-writer Luc Besson, who, again along with Robert "Karate Kid" Kamen, created this sensory opus to engage the retina, not the brain.

One of the film's most enthralling moments places Martin and his beloved Audi at the bottom of a lake, where the clenched-jawed hero must decide between drowning or being blown up if he swims to the surface.

"His beloved car will be his funeral!" a baddie hisses.

Statham's bold, Bruce Willis-like approach to Martin never acknowledges the inanity surrounding him, and his sheer presence not only anchors the slight and outrageous "T 3," it gives Daniel Craig a run for his license to thrill.

"Transporter 3"

Rating: 2&189; stars

Starring: Jason Statham, Robert Knepper, Natalya Rudakova, Jeroen Krabbe, Francois Berleand

Directed by: Oliver Megaton

Other: A Lions Gate Films release. Rated PG-13 for violence, sexual situations, drug use. 100 minutes