A reckless, sprawling sequel which does away with Corey Yuen’s plot and character development in resounding favour of big balls of fire and chase scenes, heavy artillery and finely choreographed fight scenes. It’s the kind of film in which girls carry twin automatic machine guns in their underwear. The Stath hulks about the screen like a lobotomised mix of Clint Eastwood and Bruce Lee, reprising his role as transporter Frank Martin who is now even more indestructible than ever. He becomes embroiled in an Italian gangster’s plot to poison a cabal of east coast politicians by kidnapping Matthew Modine’s son so he can pass on a viral infection to the rest of Florida. An absurd premise, but it’s great fun, particularly given Statham’s miraculous knack of surviving certain death at every opportunity. He boards a moving plane via the undercarriage and survives a full-on gas explosion in a hospital ward despite the blast obliterating everything else in its path. The depth to this franchise is laughably small, but that isn’t something which phases a producer like Luc Besson, and there will be more to follow.