Rush Hour 3 (2007) August 18, 2007
Posted by Cal in : Comedy, Action, Non-Asian , trackbackDirector: Brett Ratner Cast: Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan, Noémie Lenoir, Max von Sydow Territory: USA Production Company: New Line Cinema
I had a choice of film at the cinema today: Rush Hour 3 or The Simpsons Movie. I was pretty much sure I’d hate the former, and pretty sure I’d like the latter. So the yellow family won. It’s strange, then, that the words that left my lips at the box office were: “Rush Hour 3, please”.
D’oh!
Anyway, I figure I’m going to have to see this film at some point so I might as well get it over with. So is it as bad as everyone makes out?
Well, probably not. But that’s not to say it’s a good film, because it’s not that either. For a start, it’s easily the most predictable film I’ve ever seen. I don’t know whether this was a deliberate ploy by Ratner to engender a feeling of cosy familiarity, but probably not. The plot involves the shooting of the Chinese Ambassador by a group of Triads based in France, or something. There’s certainly some excuse for the two to go to Paris and I’m pretty sure that was it. It makes sense: the first Rush Hour was a fish-out-of-water film about a Chinese cop in the US, the second was a fish-out-of-water film about a US cop in Hong Kong, so in this one they’re both fishes-out-of-water. My bet is Rush Hour 4 will take place on Mars.
The film is basically a series of comedy skits with the odd action scene thrown in, and more often than not, the comedy falls completely flat. For example, there’s a scene where a captured henchman who only speaks French is questioned by Tucker and Chan, using a nun as an interpreter. They trade insults via the nun without using language that might offend her. Sounds like a recipe for hilarity, doesn’t it? You can see the comic potential in such a situation but for some reason it never even raised a smile. Similarly, when Tucker runs into a couple of guys called “Yu” and “Mi”…well you can guess what happens. It’s pretty much the same joke that Mike Myers used in one of his Austin Powers movies with the Japanese girls Fook Yu and Fook Mi. And then you’ve got the pacifistic French taxi driver with fierce anti-American views. His diatribe seems so odd and out of place that you twig it almost immediately: he’s eventually going to turn into a gun-toting, gung-ho badass just like Carter, isn’t he?
The action is pretty much what you’d expect: almost non-existent from Chan, who, unless I’m mistaken, is doubled throughout the film. It says something about the state of the series when you realise that Tucker (who has put on a few pounds since the last picture) pulls a few impressive moves. The Parisian locations look pretty good, though, and there’s the occasional bit of sexiness from Lenoir as the damsel-in-distress/bad girl with a secret. But eventually you’ll be looking at your watch wondering just when the bad guy will be revealed (sadly, there are no prizes for guessing who it is) so that you can watch the outtakes go home.
There are a couple of laughs in here, but they’re few and far between. The outtakes are the best part of the whole film, and when Jackie bursts through a doorway, gun raised, yelling “cheese!” instead of “freeze!”, it provided the biggest laugh of them all. It then descends into a “let’s make the foreigner say naughty things” type of thing, with Chan being given various lines in reference to getting a “dirty movie” – a line that a lot of his hardcore fans will hate, incidentally. He spouts things like “I like hairy women”, “I’m into feet” and finally, “I like hoses”, before tuning off-screen to ask, “what does this mean?” Sad, really. And there’s the customary Tucker out-takes where he’s on a plane and can’t get his words out. He does manage to order the gefilte fish, though.
This film won’t be shown in China. Whether it’s because of some negative racial stereotyping, the inclusion of Roman Polanski in a cameo role, that line about Chan wanting to watch a dirty movie, or just because the film isn’t really very good is the subject of some debate. You can’t help but feel that they’re not going to miss out on an awful lot.
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