Let’s get this out of the way.  The Transporter: Refueled, is 2002’s The Transporter, rebooted. It’s not really a refueling of the franchise, and I can’t help but think “booting” as that thing with the wheel lock that allows parking enforcement to impound a car in place while they wait for a tow-truck.

There came a point in the movie when I had the feeling that it had been going on too long, because I was getting kind of bored. I checked my watch. That was the 68-minute mark. This is a good litmus test for a movie that is failing to entertain me.

We have a kitchen-sink arsenal of “stylish action movie” tropes here: mysterious femmes fatales, murderous Eastern European mobsters, career prostitutes who look like supermodels, a grizzled ex-spy, the French Riviera, impossible vehicle physics, and an amoral hero who is very good at everything he does.

In this stylish action movie the filmmakers fuse an underdog heist with the high-concept of  2002’s The Transporter. Our overpaid, overdressed, over-trained automobile courier gets drawn into a scheme that runs contrary to his contractual code, and of which he is merely a player, not a planner.

How well does it work? There were some really cool moments in the film, like the hydrant scene from the trailers which is what got me to plunk down money for tickets. Ultimately it was too linear and predictable for a heist, and there were not enough car scenes for the Transporter franchise. The villains were cardboard cutouts, our female leads were presented in a way that made them unfortunately interchangeable, and the extremely skilled actor who was told to fill Jason Statham’s shoes seemed to be doing everything right with the part, while not actually seeming right FOR the part.

A three-word summation of the film’s failures is “style over substance.” The Transporter: Rebooted falls below my Threshold of Disappointment, entering my 2015 list ranked at #23, a position that suggests it was not as much fun as Minions, but was more enjoyable than the numerical F-twins, Fantastic Four and Furious Seven.

(Note: Several of this year’s films have played directly into the super-spy genre: Spy, The Man from Uncle, Kingsman: the Secret Service, Mission Impossible—Rogue Nation, American Ultra, Hitman: Agent 47, and now The Transporter: Refueled. They’re not interchangeable, but if I wanted to ruin the genre for someone, I’d make them watch all of those during a movie-marathon weekend.)

I saw American Ultra just one day after seeing Hitman: Agent 47, and the similarities between the two are misleading:

• Super-agents with amazing abilities
• Physics-defying stunts
• Protagonist who is unaware of their latent super-agent abilities
• Mentor who helps them unlock those abilities
• Everybody wants to kill the protagonists because of who they are, rather than anything they’ve done

I say “misleading” because that list might make you think they’re the same movie. They’re not. American Ultra is far better. It didn’t clear my Threshold of Awesome, but that’s a different scale than the one I’m using when I say “better.” American Ultra says things—interesting and important things—about the human condition. It revels in gun play like any spy movie does, but it does so in ways that let us count the cost. Also,  it’s funny. Not all the time, but at the right times.

The result is that this is not the sort of over-the-top spy movie that fans of spy movies sit down for, and that’s where my other scale comes into play. This movie was better, and more fun, than Hitman: Agent 47, but came nowhere near being as much fun as Kingsmen: The Secret Service or Spy on my fun-o-meter.

Eisenberg and Stewart were perfect in their roles, and while I’ve seen Eisenberg shine before, this marks the first time I’ve felt that way about Kristen Stewart.

American Ultra enters my 2015 list at #16,  a spot from which it really was quite close to climbing the final steps across the Threshold of Awesome. Close, but not quite.

Henry Cavill’s “Superman” is not nearly as entertaining a hero as is his “Napoleon Solo” in The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

My oldest daughter and I took in the movie Friday night, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. subsequently leaped onto my 2015 rankings and took spot #3. It could have taken the #2 slot from Avengers: Age of Ultron if its third act had treated us to more of the awesome banter from the first two acts, but the misstep was a small one, easily forgiven.

Two standout items from The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: outstanding visual storytelling during the action sequences, and brilliantly twisty dialog during the talky bits. As added bonuses, Henry Cavill redeemed himself from that Superman role I was so disappointed in, and Armie Hammer redeemed himself from that Lone Ranger role that I’m still trying to forget.

Does there need to be a sequel? No, but I left the theater happy in the knowledge that there could be, if only in the imaginations of the folks who see the film.