The Rush Hour Trilogy

Rush Hour (September 18/07)

The first pairing of Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, Rush Hour casts the duo as mismatched cops who must begrudgingly team up after a diplomat's 11-year-old daughter is kidnapped. Director Brett Ratner's light-hearted sensibilities prove to be an ideal match for Jim Kouf and Ross LaManna's brisk screenplay, and there's little doubt that both Chan and Tucker have been ideally cast in their respective roles. Tucker smartly resists the temptation to play his character as an over-the-top loudmouth, while Chan does a nice job of beefing up the movie's action sequences with his expectedly balletic physical hijinks. The increasingly convoluted storyline does put a damper on things, however, as Chan and Tucker's free-wheeling shenanigans are forced to take a backseat to some seriously uninteresting and flat-out hackneyed plot developments, yet there's little doubt that - for the most part - Rush Hour manages to coast on the palpable chemistry between the two leads (and it's certainly difficult not to get a kick out of the presence of such able performers as Tom Wilkinson, Chris Penn, and Philip Baker Hall within supporting roles).

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Rush Hour 2

Rush Hour 3 (August 5/07)

The Rush Hour series comes to a close (hopefully) with this inert and entirely needless installment, in which stars Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker are put through the paces of an overblown and downright desperate attempt at recapturing the energetic charm of the original. This time around, cops Lee (Chan) and Carter (Tucker) must travel to Paris after old friend Consul Han (Tzi Ma) is gunned down by Chinese mobsters. There's virtually nothing within Rush Hour 3 that works; screenwriter Jeff Nathanson offers up a stale storyline that's exacerbated by the unreasonably slow pace, while the film's fight sequences come off as hopelessly bland and surprisingly dull. Brett Ratner's stilted directorial choices ensure that the loose, free-wheeling vibe he's obviously striving for remains just out of reach, and Rush Hour 3 consequently possesses all the spontaneity of a daytime soap. Chan's expectedly stiff turn isn't even remotely as problematic as Tucker's obscenely broad performance, as the actor shouts and mugs his way through the entirety of the movie's protracted running time. And although the climactic battle is admittedly kind of effective, it's simply not enough to excuse the worthlessness of almost everything that precedes it.

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