The Movies: Reviews by a Film Geek

Directed by Brett Ratner

Written by Jeff Nathanson

Starring Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan

I liked the original Rush Hour. I thought it was an entertaining buddy cop movie and I thought that Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan made a great comedic team. I liked the action and the stunts. I enjoyed the second film, it was bigger and had more of what I liked about the original. Rush Hour 3 however, well I didn’t think it was that great.
Rush Hour 3 serves as a bookend to the trilogy. We are reintroduced to characters from the original film, notably Consul Han (played by Tzi Ma) and his now grown up daughter Soo Yung (the gorgeous Jingchu Zhang). The plot revolves around an assassination attempt on Consul Han by the Triads. It seems Han knows who the leader of the Triads are and he intends to stop their criminal organization.
The script by Jeff Nathanson sets everything up but then fails to have any real payoffs. There are back-stories that are never explored (what exactly did happen between Carter and Lee in New York? They mention it every 10 minutes but the audience is never privy to the information). How does Lee all of a sudden have a brother and why do they hate each other so much? The script seems to think that isn’t pertinent information. Nathanson is the guy who wrote The Terminal, Rush Hour 2, Catch Me If You Can and is a credited writer on Indy 4. He has some serious writing credits under his belt but it seems like he phoned in the screenplay based off of his outline for Rush Hour 2.
Character wise, Lee and Carter are the same as they have always been. Although now they seem derivative and uninspired, like pale shadows of there former selves. The villains, including Kenji (Lee’s brother) are cookie cutter villains. It’s like a cliffs notes version of antagonists. Max Von Sydow is here and oh, how the mighty have fallen. He plays an uninteresting riff of his character from Minority Report. It was actually painful to watch. Character/actor wise the best moment was Roman Polanski who shows up for a small role. Watching him here makes me smile, his character was easily my favorite part of the flick (but that could be because he is one of my favorite directors… maybe I’m playing favoritism).
The action was weak compared to the previous movies and the fight scenes were, for the most part, boring. The only time I was actually enjoying myself was the moment that the flick spoofs The Godfather, the action that follows was pretty cool and enjoyable. Jackie Chan is definitely showing his age. The first two films had him doing all sorts of crazy stunts, here, he barely does anything, and what he does do shows signs of obvious wire work and blue screen. Speaking of which, the flick is littered with shoddy CGI and bad blue screen work (there is a chance what I saw wasn’t a finished cut, at least once a CG shot was still rough and had Timecode running at the top), so maybe the FX will be fixed for the release.
Besides action the Rush Hour movies have always had a healthy dose of humor, and that is intact here (but there is a lot more potty humor this time around). I did find myself chuckling through the flick. Tucker does what he does best, playing himself and showing off his dance skills. I did hate the “Who’s on First?” rip off… I mean they basically did the skit verbatim, just with different names.
And now I come to Brett Ratner, who once again proves that he is a generic filmmaker with no sense of originality. I mean, the movie is set in Paris, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and yet he shoots it in a way that makes it look ugly, and boring. Even the Eiffel Tower becomes bland and ugly, when he shoots it. Brett I have to ask… did you go out of your way to make Paris ugly?
In the end I guess I half liked the movie. Is it worth seeing? Well that’s a tough question for me to answer because I personally think that every movie should be seen. Even the worst films ever made have small bits and pieces that are enjoyable, and it’s not exactly torture to watch a movie. I guess if you are a fan of the first two you’ll find stuff to like. If you hated the others than there is nothing here for you. If you want to see a good summer buddy cop movie… I’d personally steer you elsewhere. I consider this a rental, or at the most a matinee.