MIDWAY through one of the pedestrian chases that litter Rush Hour 3, Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker’s bickering detectives slide into the Parisian sewers to escape some gun-wielding bad guys, spluttering as they are submerged in all kinds of continental nastiness.
If you look closely, you could probably see Brett Ratner’s painfully misconceived action-comedy bobbing down there with the rest of the detritus.
The third film begins on the streets of Los Angeles, where Detective Carter (Chris Tucker) has been demoted to traffic duty, and Inspector Lee (Jackie Chan) is working as a bodyguard to a Chinese Ambassador.
When a sniper attempts to assassinate the ambassador, Lee and Carter make a promise to the statesman’s daughter to hunt down the assassin, culminating in a showdown at the Eiffel Tower.
Verdict: Rush Hour 3 is depressing for its lack of laughs or thrills. Director Ratner fails to energise any of the set pieces, and Tucker’s incessant babbling chokes the remaining life out of the film.
The price tag may read in excess of $100m, but Ratner’s film is cheap and cheerless, giving Tucker free rein to showboat with his painfully unfunny verbal outbursts while Chan’s inability to speak fluent English, evidenced in the end credit out-takes, certainly doesn’t help generate on-screen chemistry.
