I’m not a huge fan of cop buddy movies (especially when there are comedic elements thrown in), so I never go out of my way to watch this genre. Of course, this is not a hard and fast rule, and there have definitely been exceptions over the years. For example, I liked the first two Rush Hour films because they were fun and entertaining, so I decided that I’d go ahead and watch the third one — in the theater, no less — even though I kind of had a feeling before going in that this installment wouldn’t be as good as the first two. I was right….
Plot summary (with possible spoilers): As the film opens, we see that James Carter (played by Chris Tucker) has once again gotten into unspecified trouble with the LAPD. So instead of being a detective and working on the big cases, he’s nothing more than a traffic cop in a busy L.A. intersection. Of course, he can’t even handle that assignment properly because he’s more interested in groovin’ to tunes on his iPod than actually directing traffic. The result? A several car pileup within a minute of Carter’s shenanigans.
We also see that Inspector Lee (Jackie Chan) is now working as a bodyguard for Ambassador Han (Tzi Ma), the man whose daughter was kidnapped in the first Rush Hour film. Han is about to make an important speech at the World Court in which he’ll expose an underground gang of dangerous Chinese criminals. Just as he’s about to make the big revelation, however, he gets gunned down by a sniper in an assassination attempt.
Lee gives chase to the sniper, and somehow Carter is able to pick up on what’s going happening, so he joins in the fun. Lee is able to corner the suspect, who turns out to be Kenji (Hiroyuki Sanada), a man from Lee’s past. Even though both have their weapons drawn, Kenji says, “You won’t shoot me,” before finally just walking away. As soon as Kenji uttered that line, I knew Lee would somehow be responsible for his death before the film ended.
Han ends up surviving the assassination attempt, but his life is in danger. Han’s daughter Soo Young (Zhang Jingchu), now grown, arrives at the hospital to be with her father. She tearfully begs Carter and Lee to find the man who tried to kill Han because she knows he’ll never be safe while the assassin is at large. Carter and Lee agree, and their partnership is reborn.
Their unofficial investigation leads them to Paris, where it’s revealed that Kenji is at the head of the criminal organization that Han was about to expose. The rest of the film then deals with Carter and Lee trying to get to Kenji before he and his gang can wreak untold havoc on the rest of the world.
My Reaction: I thought Rush Hour 3 was a major disappointment. This movie comes six years after the last installment and had a budget of $140 million, so I was hoping for a hell of a lot more than what we got here. I mean, I can’t even figure out what that $140 million could have been spent on! It’s not like the movie featured huge explosions or other expensive action sequences that would have taken that much money to film.
Anyway, getting back to the story itself, I thought the whole premise was pretty lame with tons of stupid contrivances that were thrown in just to make the script somewhat workable. For example, the whole assassination attempt was garbage. Why would the assassin not have an escape route already planned out? He went down the front of the building in the middle of the day (dressed all in black so people would know he was a “bad guy”) and proceeded to dash wildly across streets and highways. You’d think he would have had some back alleys mapped out, but no.
Furthermore, why was Kenji even the one carrying out the assassination attempt in the first place? Usually heads of major criminal organizations have underlings take care of the actual dirty work, right?
With these thoughts flowing through my mind barely 15 minutes into the movie, you can see why I didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to! There were plenty of other contrivances along the same nonsensical lines as the assassination attempt (like two grown men jumping off the Eiffel Tower and using a huge flag as a makeshift parachute), but I won’t bother boring you by listing them all.
I also thought the fight scenes looked too… choreographed. I know they’re choreographed for all action movies, but usually this is done in a way to make them look at least somewhat natural. But the fights in Rush Hour 3 seemed fake to me, which again detracted from my enjoyment.
And where was the humor? I was looking forward to a bunch of great one-liners from Chris Tucker like in the first two films, but even these were lacking. I cracked a smile a couple of times, but there definitely weren’t any laugh-out-loud moments.
Sadly, the best part of Rush Hour 3 was when they showed the outtakes as the credits rolled. Those scenes were much funnier than what actually made it into the final cut. I give this movie 5.0 stars out of 10 and recommend that you just wait for the DVD.