There are few actors I find less annoying than Chris Tucker. He all but nearly destroyed The Fifth Element, a movie I otherwise love. I’ve learned to ignore him in that film for the most part. I just think of a happy place during his moments. I’m a Jackie Chan fan, and have suffered through Tucker in the previous Rush Hour films, so I knew what I was in for. While this might be the weakest of the Rush Hour films (though not by a lot), it has enough fun with itself to work. And despite my dislike for the actor, Tucker’s character does get some fun material from time to time. I’ll take the Shanghai Knights films over the Rush Hour films any day. Owen Wilson is a major improvement in partner over Chris Tucker.

Writing: I’m not going to bother trying to ground this plot in reality when considering the success of the writing. It connects one scene to the next well enough to stage some fun action and pull off some amusing comedy.

Production: There are some nice set pieces in this franchise entry. Of particular fun is the big action finale on the Eiffel Tower. It incorporates some of the lesser considered inner workings of the landmark quite well. Other production aspects are well done, from cinematography to sound design to location work.

Cast: Jackie Chan is my primary reason for seeing the Rush Hour films. He gets to do some cool stunt stuff, and there’s still some of the Jackie Chan magic at work, but he’s been scaling things back a bit in recent years. I guess his age, and American film production paranoia, are catching up with him. The big action set piece at the end of the film does give some nice stunt opportunity. As I said before, I tolerate Chris Tucker in this role. He’s not 100% annoying, but I’d take pretty much any other actor in the role. Well, not Richard Gere, but there’s zero chance that he’d ever be considered for a role even remotely like this. The rest of the cast is filled out with interesting choices, from Max von Sydow to none-other-than Roman Polanski.

Music: One of my other reasons for seeing the Rush Hour films is for composer Lalo Schifrin. As in previous films, Schifrin does a marvelous job in scoring this third entry. He’s worked with director Brett Ratner on 5 films now (all 3 Rush Hours, Money Talks and the under-rated After The Sunset). Schifrin is a film score legend, and surely one of the oldest still working in the industry at 75 years old. Everyone knows his work, whether they know it or not. The Mission Impossible theme will always be his greatest hallmark.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 2:25 am and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.