Rush Hour 3 (2007)

After enjoying the zaniness of Rush Hour (1998) and Rush Hour 2 (2001), we were interested in finding out if the unlikely pairing of Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker would work for a third time in Rush Hour 3.

However, there wasn’t as much hype as we were expecting when this film hit theaters, so decide to wait until the film came to DVD to find out if the third time would be a charm for this duo – or if this would be the film where that pairing would finally disintegrate?

Jackie Chan is still fun to watch when he gets up to his martial arts hijinks, but seems to have lost interest in keeping his pairing with Tucker alive. Instead, he spends most of the film trying to shoo away Tucker, as if he has gotten as annoyed with Tucker as most of the viewers have. He still shines in some decent action sequences, but this time around it’s nothing viewers haven’t seen before…and Chan’s apparent lackluster attitude at being back in this pairing helps discourage viewers even further.

Chris Tucker, always slighlty annoying, has been kept in check during the previous films by Chan’s harder, more serious character. Apparently, the 6 years between films for Tucker hasn’t improved that at all, and Tucker does his best to overact his way through the entire film. While he managed to be surprisingly comical in the past two, here he seems to take on more of the annoying characteristics viewers are used to seeing from him, and goes from slightly grating to incredibly annoying. Even his jokes have gotten lousier this time around, and it’s almost painful to watch his apparent eagerness at being back on screen turn his persona from something that was once funny to something that’s just plain irritating.

Gone is the love interest of the second film, played by Roselyn Sanchez, whose disappearance is explained away half-heartedly by the characters on a plane trip part way through the film. Obviously, Roselyn could smell the stink of this one coming from miles away, and begged off. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing the wrong way when the newcomers entered, as they were to late to smell the reek…and are even now trying to forget they ever appeared in this one.

The one exception to this comes in the form of an over-exuberant taxi driver named George, portrayed with hilarity by Yvan Attal. His excitedness at being involved in car chases and shoot-outs is contagious, and is definitely the high point of Rush Hour 3.

After being able to pull of two successful films in the series, viewers would think Brett Ratner would know his characters by now. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case, as he delivers a Rush Hour 3 that’s lost all the heart and excitement that made the first two such hits. Instead, he delivers up a souless Rush Hour 3 that seems much longer than it’s comparatively brief hour and a half running time.

It’s sad that the series had to end this way. Apparently, everyone was sick of it, and were in this one just for the money. Despite a few brief shining moments in the film by Yvan Attal’s hilarious performance, this film starts off the wrong foot, and keeps tripping itself up the longer it goes on. And despite it’s short time, the film seems to take forever to reach a conclusion – and even that is unsatisfying.

So what went wrong? Jackie has moved on with his career, Chris Tucker has gotten more annoying, and Brett Ratner never wanted to make another film in the series? Surely those cant’ all be true, but after watching Rush Hour 3, it may be hard to convince yourself otherwise.

A real disappointment, and a pathetic ending to a series that seemed to be going so well.