Review: Rush Hour 3 (2007)

Rush Hour 3
reviewed by Samuel Osborn

Director: Brett Ratner
Screenplay: Jeff Nathanson
Cast: Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker
MPAA Classification: PG-13

If I'm not mistaken, Rush Hour 3 is the final sequel in a long train
of franchise continuations to be released during Summer '07. With
Spiderman 3, 28 Weeks Later, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Shrek 3,
Oceans 13, Live Free or Die Hard, Fantastic Four 2, Harry Potter and
the Order of the Phoenix, Hostel 2, Evan Almighty, and The Bourne
Ultimatum on its heels, Rush Hour 3 certainly finds itself in a thick,
polluted cloud of oversized expectations and bristling fans. It's been
an exhausting Summer. But luckily, unlike Spidey and Jack Sparrow, the
buzz around Detective Li and Detective Carter of Rush Hour 3 hasn't
risen above a gentle hum. And with the tentpole mentality out of the
way (no midnight screenings, juicy on-set rumors, profit-minded blog
spoilers), the lack of heady expectation surrounding this sixth
trilogy capper of the season makes Rush Hour 3 all the more
tolerable.

Let's say it's like a Spring Roll: a flimsy, transparent outer-layer
of action that bounds the healthy innards of comedy to make a fine,
single entrée of a genre. The formula has aged; in fact, the whole
genre has all but died since its advent with the original Rush Hour.
But call that a blessing because Rush Hour 3 is a near-exact clone of
its predecessors. It wouldn't work if we could remember the films'
similarities.

That thin outer-layer of action breading involves the Parisian Triads
and their attempted assassination of Ambassador Han (Tzi Ma), assigned
charge of Detective Li (Jackie Chan). Driven by honor and pride and
whatever else Westerners perceive the Chinese to be motivated by,
Detective Li sets off to hunt the Triads to their core. Loud and
racially alight, Detective Carter (Chris Tucker) tags along , using
Li's investigation as a vacation from his duties as a lowly Los
Angeles traffic controller.

As is standard to a buddy cop picture, the unlikely pairing of Jackie
Chan to Chris Tucker is the film's lifeblood. Jeff Nathanson's script
does well to load Tucker's performance with fantastic one-liners
tailored to his shrieking timbre with ample opportunities for Chan to
swing about as a one-man circus. This is where the two belong: with
Tucker as the mouthpiece and Chan as the dropkick. Watching Jackie
Chan trying to maneuver a snappy one liner is like watching him try to
swallow cardboard. Not funny in the right way. And though his martial
arts are still more dizzying than anything a skinny white boy like
myself can imagine, Chan seems to have grown past his prime. Innocent
and smiling, dying to entertain, Chan was the modern-day answer to
silent-film legends. He flung himself into dastardly stunts for our
gosh-wow amazement and did so with a giddy, boyish pride. He still
does so here, but it's apparent that he's grown past fifty. I hate to
call that a criticism since fifty-three year old stuntmen don't grow
on trees, but the effects are sadly noticeable.

For a standard buddy cop picture, Brett Ratner seems the right choice
as a standard director. Not especially interesting in any way (except,
maybe, for ruining the X-Men franchise), Ratner directs the film
rather competently. He leads it along at an efficient pace and never
lets creativity stand in the way of the good, expected joke. And for
this Rush Hour 3 is fine. It's no better than any other franchise
decency released this Summer, but because its been six years since the
last Rush Hour was released, this time it feels fresh. Or at least
fresh enough.
Samuel Osborn