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Review: This wreck can't rush fast enough to the junkyard
'Rush Hour 3'
Opens Aug. 10: Century Downtown, Century Rio, Cottonwood, Four Hills, High Ridge, Winrock
Rated: PG-13
Running time: 91 min.
Director: Brett Ratner
Grade: F
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At least Brett Ratner is ruining his own lousy franchise this time.
The director of all three "Rush Hour" movies made Hannibal Lecter boring in 2002's "Red Dragon," and "X-Men 3" was an embarrassing joke compared with its wondrous predecessors.
His talentless touch is death for a film, and so he seems to have found a kindred spirit in actor Chris Tucker, who hasn't made a movie since "Rush Hour 2." This is probably because Tucker lacks talent or charisma, looks terrible on camera and has a grating voice. Otherwise, he's terrific.
No, wait — he's also a loud comedian who stinks at telling jokes.
These hacks deserve each other.
"Rush Hour 3" is a movie for morons. Jackie Chan teams with Tucker for the third time and looks like he desperately wishes he'd saved his money better. There's a plot about a 500-year-old gang looking for a list of names, but it's cookie-cutter and lacks a single moment of consequence. Just try to stay interested. I dare you.
Spoiler alert: Chan at one point has to decide whether he should reach out and save his evil brother, who's hanging over a ledge and moments from falling toward certain death. Clever.
Spoiler alert: Neither Chan's Inspector Lee nor Tucker's Detective Carter is dead at the end of the movie. This is the film's biggest spoiler, because it leaves open the possibility for another brain-hating sequel.
Though maybe the "Rush Hour" movies are a blessing. Ratner can use these films — with their predictable plots, flat jokes and choreographed-by-a-kindergarten-teacher fight scenes — to occupy himself, rather than goo-ing up other movies with his sellout style. It would be a tragedy, for instance, if he helmed a new "Batman" or "Bond" movie.
Because nothing seems to matter. The story doesn't have to excite or even make sense.
Tucker is worse than a bad actor, because he is genuinely painful to watch, so Ratner couldn't care less about casting. He doesn't even like comedy.
The jokes in "Rush Hour 3" are the easy, racial type that belong in those cable sitcoms no one watches. Lee misses Carter at one point, and so he orders fried chicken. There are "Did-he-just-say-the-n-word" jokes (plural). When even those won't do, Ratner has Tucker start dancing and singing in a woman's voice.
They're criminals. All of them. "Rush Hour 3" is the worst kind of filmmaking.
Congrats to these men for setting the bar even lower. I hate these movies.
