Rush Hour 3 Review

For everyone who says that Hollywood is out of original ideas,  you have no one but yourselves to blame.  With all the characters who have made their 3rd appearance on the big screen in the last 3 months alone (Spider Man, Jack Sparrow, Jason Bourne, and Shrek to name a few), you might think at least one of those films experienced some sort of box office backlash.  Instead, 3 of them have made over $300 million, while Bourne is well on his way there it seems.  What can we say, other than we love familiarity at the box office?

Probably the least hyped threequel of the summer arrived just over a week ago, as Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan reprise their culture clashing roles for Rush Hour 3, which comes six years after the last installment.  The first two Rush Hour movies were highly enjoyable action comedies that allowed Tucker to show off and Chan to finally score some box office gold here in America.  Sure, they were merely updates of the tried and true buddy cop film, but they were well done, very funny, and had action sequences that, at the time, seemed fresh and unique.

Rush Hour 3 isn't as fresh, and isn't nearly as unique as the first two films, but it still gives you a decent amount of entertainment for your box office dollar.  Tucker is still Detective James Carter, while Chan is still Inspector Li.  This time, Li is back with the Chinese consulate from the first film (and his now grown up daughter, Soo-Yong), but he is soon reunited with Carter after an assassination attempt on the consulate's life.  Their investigation leads them to Paris, France of all places, as they try to once and for all take down the Chinese Triads.

Not surprisingly, a lot of the culture clashing jokes from the first two films are reprised here, albeit in slightly different forms.  But there is a decent amount of new humor as well.  The action sequences don't seem quite as cool as they did six years ago, and there's an air of familiarity to them as well.  However, the fight choreographers have done a nice job of coming up with new stunts and new scenes to balance it out. 

Tucker has essentially banked his entire career on these films (he hasn't done anything since Rush Hour 2), and he gives his usual over the top, energetic performance here.  He gets to sing and dance a bit more, but it's all in good fun.  Thankfully, Chan's character seems to have become less of a comic book amalgam and is now a bit less awkward. 

Ultimately, whether you'll enjoy this film comes down to whether you liked the first two or not.  While not as good as the first two, if you enjoyed those, I can't see how you wouldn't at least get some value out of this.  Sure, it's Hollywood familiarity at it's worst this summer.  But sometimes,  you just want to catch up with old friends.