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You have to admire producer-writer Luc Besson and star Jason Statham for their ongoing Transporter franchise. This is a series of films–inspired by a car ad campaign–that revolves around a beautifully simplistic premise: Cool guy in nice suits drives a sleek, lovely car very fast in clear defiance of the laws of both the road and physics, occasionally stopping to kick bad guys in the face. In fact, the movies’ enduring appeal seems to both echo and emerge from the stripped-down sturdy, elegance of both car and driver.

That leaves the Transporter movies fairly critic-proof: Either you like this sort of automotive escapism or you don’t. If you’re on board, then the films pretty much race into one another. These aren’t movies that stand or fall based on their plots or even their increasingly outrageous stunts–rather, they form a sort of never-ending chilled-out road-raced fever dream.

If that seems paradoxical or contradictory, that’s the film’s secret recipe: Statham’s Frank Martin is so laid-back and unflappable (no matter how much the filmmakers try to flap him with increasingly wild situations for him and his Audi) that he and his solid bald head act as the perfect anchor for when the films’ action swerves off into Speed-Racer-style vehicular acrobatics.

I know what you’re thinking: What’s left for Frank Martin to transport? Personally, I’m holding out for Transporter: Circus Animal Edition. But in Transporter 3 he’s back from his Transporter 2 Miami jaunt and relaxing his red-lined tachometer mind and super-buff body while fishing at his home near Marseilles. But then, wouldn’t you know it, bad guys and events conspire to get Frank back on the road. Trapped by a Speed-like bracelet/gimmick that explodes if he gets 75 feet from his Audi, Frank must dive a young Ukranian raver girl across Europe. (She’s the sassy, sexy, soulful kind, played here by the latest Besson discovery, Natalya Rudakova.) Hong-Kong-style ballet-choreographed fist-fights and hilariously over-the-top car-jinks ensue.

But who are we kidding? No one sees a Transporter flick for its plot. In this case, Besson and director Olivier Megaton take their time working up to the trademark gonzo car stunts, but when they do they don’t disappoint. Episode 3′s action may not be quite as South-Beach silly as Episode 2′s was, but once things get moving, the filmmakers serve up a delightful bike-car chase, the expected Joie Chitwood driving exhibitions, and the obligatory "oh, no way!" finale. And mixed into it all is a nice smattering of a shirtless Statham whopping up on the bad guys with dazzling combo of suit-fu and a set of abs that must have washboards around the globe going "dang, those are some abs!"

Insane abdominals aside, you can’t help but feel that Jason Statham is near a big-star breakthrough in the U.S. From the Guy Richie London gangster films, through the Transporter series (and it’s much sleazier cousin, the growing Crank franchise), and with impressive supporting parts in movies like The Italian Job, Statham is angling hard to be the British Bruce Willis: an actor more talented than most of his no-nonsense, soft-hearted tough-roles require. (Check Statham out in The Bank Job, where he layers all sorts of hope and desperation on top of a standard little-crook-trying-to-score-big lead character.)

And Transporter 3 finally gives Frank Martin the scenery chewing villain any action-franchise hero deserves: Prison Break‘s Robert "T-Bag" Knepper, a wonderful character actor who comes off twitchy even when standing perfectly still.

Not to re-open the whole Bond argument, but those fans missing the gravity-be-damned car chases of the old Bond movies, can nicely fill their need with the Transporter films. Frank also shares 007′s sartorial sensibilities–his collars are so sharply starched, you expect him to use them in a knife fight. No doubt that’s on the menu for Transporter 4. (Ironically, the same BMW ad series that inspired the Transporter films, starred Clive Owen in what was supposed to be, along with Croupier, Owen’s de facto audition for taking over the Bond series back in the pre-Craig days.)

The Transporter series is a cinematic perpetual motion machine. The films aren’t huge box-office hits in the U.S., but they do just fine on DVD and are created (and sometimes badly dubbed) to play all over the world. They are never great, ground-breaking films (though their mainlining of Asian action-film sensibilities is more than welcome), but they never bore or–on their own stripped-down terms–disappoint. They just keep moving forward. At very dangerous speeds.

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