Hardly a ‘threequal’ that audiences were pining for, the culture clash duo of Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan return for a third outing of kung fu comedy and racial stereotyping. Ben Johnson cringes at the thought…
Distributor: Entertainment in Video (2 Disc) Format: Region 2 (PAL) Length: 91 min. Aspect Ratio: Widescreen Audio: English Subtitles: English Extras: Deleted scenes with director commentary, outtakes, theatrical trailer, feature length audio commentary Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
Year of Release: 2007; Origin: United States; Studio: Avery Pix, New Line Cinema, Rat Entertainment, Roger Birnbaum Productions; Length: 90min.
Director: Brett Ratner; Producer: Roger Birnbaum, Andrew Z. Davis, Jonathan Glickman, Arthur M. Sarkissian, Jay Stern; Script: Jeff Nathanson; Action Director: Jackie Chan; Cast: Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan, Max von Sydow, Hiroyuki Sanada, Yvan Attal, Youki Kudoh, Noemie Lenoir, Zhang Jingchu, Tzi Ma.
Alternative Titles: N/A
Trailer: Click below to view the trailer for Rush Hour 3
Plot Synopsis
California, present day: Cop buddies Lee (Chan) and Carter (Tucker) return to fight another batch of Chinese Triads after the Chinese ambassador is shot during diplomacy meetings with a room full of awkward political stereotypes, held under the formal presidency of the edgy head of council Varden Reynard (von Sydow). The Ambassador survives, but the attacks continue until Lee and Tucker (they’re still just friends, right?) trace the Triads back to Paris, and discover that Lee’s brother Kenji (Sanada) is behind a plot to find the names of an ancient pact of Triad brethren hidden somewhere on the streets of France.
Review
Slated upon its release (although still taking modest returns), 2007’s latest ‘threequal’ (following Shrek 3, Bourne 3, Pirates 3, Spiderman 3 et al) arrives six years after the release of Rush Hour 2, which seemed to hit the cheap laughs and buddy action right on the funny bone with its parade of culture clash hi-jinks more user friendly than the Lethal Weapon films. The singular most miraculous thing about the Rush Hour franchise was the astonishing accomplishment of not making Chris Tucker unbearably annoying, like a cat stuck in an air vent. For this, director Ratner deserves an Oscar. The fact that Tucker has done very little else since Rush Hour 2 speaks volumes (apart from seemingly eating too much ‘mu-shu’), while Jackie Chan has continued to make rather duff films with very little purpose other than to cement his claim as the office workaholic. Rush Hour 3 is met with a general shrug of indifference, and pulls very few surprises.
In fact, many of the same jokes are repeated and I’m certain that this is the same story line as the first film. Max von Sydow manages to muster enough energy to warrant a sizeable paycheck, even if he does deliver his lines as if he’s addressing a crowd of morons, which he undeniably is. While Hiroyuki Sanada (another sublime actor) is barely given a moment’s thought in a supporting role brush-off which completely undermines his credibility. As for the leading men, Chan walks through the film with his eyes closed, shifting to autopilot in fight scenes involving a kinky Chinese dominatrix and a final high-wire duel on the iron frames of the EiffelTower. Whereas Tucker seems to need this more as Ratner completely loses his grip on the reins: Tucker is again given the best lines, but at the expense of the rest of the cast and his own audience. His singing, like Jackie’s, is excruciating. And when they get to France, things get really bad.
The duo manage to single-handedly take Franco-American relations back some two decades with a steady stream of cheap racial slurring which acts to dismantle entire cultures into mere sound bites for an audience of gabbling idiots. So the French hate the Americans, they eat onions and do the Can-Can. And the Chinese don’t get off lightly, either: they all know kung fu and have funny names. You’ll cringe at some of Tucker’s already noted motifs involving Michael Jackson impressions and other staples of ‘black America’ (which still appears to be lodged somewhere in the 1980s between Eddie Murphy and the Cosby Show), including a scene where Chan orders fried chicken in memory of his absent sidekick. Such brazen narrow mindedness inevitably hampers the film’s general good nature, and it all gets very demeaning very quickly. No wonder China are planning to ban it. Thankfully, for all our sakes, the film is quite forgettable.
By: Ninos Mayne (Registered IP 86.0.92.39) on 10-05-2008 08:54
Oh contreh, mon frere. I thought Rush Hour 3 was good, but I guess I see you're where you're coming from. It was definitely not the best out of the three. But what I remember most about it is that 6 years before it was released, there was a rumor around my school that Rush Hour 3 was coming out, so I've literally been waiting the whole 6 years for it.
Hardly a ‘threequal’ that audiences were pining for, the culture clash duo of Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan return for a third outing of kung fu comedy and racial stereotyping. Ben Johnson cringes at the thought… 
(0 vote)
By: Ninos Mayne (Registered IP 86.0.92.39) on 10-05-2008 08:54
I thought Rush Hour 3 was good, but I guess I see you're where you're coming from.
It was definitely not the best out of the three.
But what I remember most about it is that 6 years before it was released, there was a rumor around my school that Rush Hour 3 was coming out, so I've literally been waiting the whole 6 years for it.
But anyway, great article :)
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