|
is too rose-colored, but they seemed a little weak this time around. I always enjoy Chan jumping around and creatively manipulating the environment like only he can, but the staging was less elaborate this time around, and even the final set piece, him and one of the bad guys climbing around on the Eiffel Tower, consists of nothing much more than two guys stumbling around. What happened to all the intricate choreography? There’s a little bit, but there should’ve been more.
Oh yeah, I never mentioned that they’re in France. They are, for the majority of the film anyway, and one of the big additions to the cast is George (Yvan Attal), their cab driver, who is meant and succeeds to be a big crowd-pleaser. Wearing a two-day-old beard and a wide-eyed goofy stare, he initially professes hatred of the United States, but quickly becomes an ally after a car chase, because he wants to, and I’m paraphrasing, “be a secret agent like Americans who kill people for no reason.” That sounds slightly more like James Bond than an American, but I won’t split hairs. Point is, George is a likable and welcome addition to the cast (although he had one line that stuck out: in his initial anti-American diatribe, he mentions that we “lost in Vietnam and lost in Iraq.” If it’s gotten to the point where a major Hollywood movie says we’ve lost a war, does that make it true?)
There’s no denying that Tucker and Chan have a good, obvious chemistry, and plenty of the movie is funny enough to elicit a few laughs. It’s by no means bad. A lot people, I imagine, will really like it, just as a lot of people really liked the previous two movies. Most people don’t want much more from their movies. They’d rather relax for an hour and a half and chuckle a few times, not think or get too worked up. I really can’t fault them for that, so by extension, I really can’t fault Nathanson, Tucker, Chan, or even director Brett Ratner, who I’m still mad at for destroying the X-Men franchise’s credibility last summer. Ratner is the king of making mediocre movies that are easy to sell, and if that was the job description, I hope he enjoys the paycheck.
(I hope Tucker and Chan do too: Tucker reportedly made 30 million dollars on this because he flat-out refused to do it unless they paid him that much. Since New Line understandably wanted to make it considering the financial successes of the first two, they gave him what he wanted. Chan, unsurprisingly an all-around nicer guy, wasn’t a jerk about it and took 15 million dollars, still quite a sizable raise from last time.)
If you’re the type that doesn’t ask for much from your movies, and if you’ve liked the first two, you’ll probably like Rush Hour 3, since it is, as expected, ...
|
