Another ‘Rush Hour’ is on with Chan and Tucker
Published 4:54 pm Wednesday, August 8, 2007
The mysterious disappearance of Chris Tucker ends with the opening scene of “Rush Hour 3,” in which Tucker appears as a traffic cop crooning a falsetto tune to his iPod as the cars crash around him.
It’s a good bit for Tucker, who enjoyed some uproarious moments as a screen comedian before going into self-imposed professional exile after “Rush Hour 2” in 2001. Six years later, he looks larger, and partner Jackie Chan looks older, but the two are up to the same shtick as usual in this new one.
For a while, “Rush Hour 3” (directed, as before, by Brett Ratner) looks like it’s going to top its predecessors for sheer comic breathlessness. Although the storyline has some nominal seriousness to it – police partners Chan and Tucker are hunting a would-be assassin in Paris – the tone is strictly lightweight, and the plot an excuse for our heroes to crack wise.
Early highlights include a fight with an enormous kung fu master, a showdown with a nosy French airport official (razor-sharp cameo by director Roman Polanski), and a funny running gag with a Paris cabbie (Yvan Attal) who hates American violence.
Tucker also scores points during an extremely silly variation on an old Abbott and Costello routine, as he gets verbally pretzled while meeting two men named Yu and Mi.
Jackie Chan is pulling back from some of the more elaborate stunts of his youth, but there are still things here that display the old prowess. A fight scene on the Eiffel Tower in the third act goes on too long, keeping the guys from their customary chemistry together.
One of the movie’s problems, other than its abbreviated length, is the lack of any strong subplot – no love story, no decent villain to follow. Hiruyoki Sanada, who’s also cool in the current “Sunshine,” could be a fine foil for Jackie Chan, but pops up too infrequently to matter.
Absolutely nothing is at stake here, even in the cardboard terms of a big summer movie. Sure, it’s funny when the guys take over a French nightclub act and croon a love song to each other, but there’s nothing else to cut to.
Some people find Chris Tucker’s whiny, goggle-eyed style annoying. Not me. The guy has funny bones, and it seems like a waste of his comic gifts for him to stay out of movies for six years in his prime. That’s his business, but I hope he finds a script he likes before 2013.
