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As Jackie Chan described the character arc that led to the inevitable Rush Hour 3, "the first one, I fish-out-of-water, the second one, he fish-out-of-water. The third one, we both fish."
The good news is that with this pointless three-quel, the permutations seem to have run out (albeit one movie after the jokes did). The bad news, I fear, is that the fish is us.
It took six years to coerce another bickering-buddy comedy out of Chan, Chris Tucker and director Brett Ratner -- even with $25 million each dangled in front of the stars. Consequently, Rush Hour 3 has the tone of an obligation grudgingly fulfilled after the cheques have been dutifully cashed.
The result is a series of dubiously comic-set pieces strung together by the thinnest of plots. Chan and Tucker sing some old school R&B in a French nightclub, Tucker gets relegated to traffic-cop duty and funkifies the job with extreme fender-bending results, Tucker passes himself off as a French costume designer (apparently all you need to do to pass for French in France is to speak English with a French accent). A French nun gets down with her bad self when she volunteers to interrogate a suspect. Chan and Tucker get tossed around by a 7-foot-8 Chinese basketball player.
All of which has little to do with the ostensible plot. This was always true of the series, of course, but the plot is now so extraneous, most of it is just recycled from previous Rush Hour films. The Hong Kong consul (Tzi Ma) is targeted for assassination by a bloodthirsty triad (again). His daughter Soo Yung (Jingchu Zhang this time) is kidnapped (again).
The twist: An informant tells our loose cannons, Chief Inspector Lee and LAPD detective James Carter (Tucker), that the brains of the operation is in the City of Lights.
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And so they do what loose cannons do in buddy movies -- go somewhere they're not assigned to go, where they have no jurisdiction, no contacts and no familiarity with the language. And naturally, they'll stumble right into the middle of the world's most elusive criminal organization, literally within minutes.
They make new friends along the way, including George (Yvan Attal), a stereotypically snotty Parisian cab driver who hates Americans, but quickly reveals himself as a fan of good old American violence. There's also Roman Polanski as Det. Revi, the world's shortest police officer, and a pop star named Genevieve (Noemie Lenoir) who is somehow key to
everything, or something.
What's left is the usual quotient of racial stereotypes and ass-kicking. One thing they have changed, is that Tucker's character has apparently been taking lessons and is now a kung fu expert who can dispatch five or six shaolin gangsters at a time -- meaning he doesn't have to be saved by Lee anymore, and doesn't get to yell for help in his trademark high-pitched voice. Depending on how you see it, this is either a blessing or another avenue for humour, lost.
If the latter, more's the pity. This is a comedy that's starved for funny, one in which all of what jokes there are have been given away in the trailers.
What's left just flops around on the screen like a fish out of water.
(This film is rated PG)