Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here.
I wasn’t going to do this.
I figured there was no way anyone was going to give RUSH HOUR 3 a pass, and there was no reason to even jump into the conversation. I figured New Line already knew exactly what they’d make on it, and criticism wasn’t going to change things one way or another.
But I’m dumbfounded at the tolerance towards this, and instead of just popping up in Quint’s talkback or Massawyrm’s talkback, I thought I’d go ahead and put all of my thoughts together in one place. If only I was the editor of a website where we publish film reviews...
Here’s the first thing I would say to anyone who has given RUSH HOUR 3 even semi-passing marks as a movie... what did you think of X-MEN 3? Because regardless of your feelings about the underlying material in each case, I’d argue that the difference in filmmaking between the two sums up the potential for success and failure in Brett Ratner in equal measure. And, make no mistake... as much as the RUSH HOUR films are “about” Jackie Chan or “about” Chris Tucker, they are “about” Brett Ratner.
When he started his career and was making movie like MONEY TALKS or the first RUSH HOUR, those were fairly modest little movies, programmers in the broadest sense of the word. Those are the types of movies that really made New Line successful, little movies that were easily sold. It’s Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, and there are car chases, karate and gunfights. Might as well just call it DUH: THE MOVIE. And in that first RUSH HOUR, you can see Ratner The Mimic at his best. I don’t think he’s a director of ideas or innovation, but when he’s riffing off someone else’s creation, he’s not bad. He knows some moves. He can put together a decent movie. In the first RUSH HOUR, he was reacting to pretty much all of Jackie’s films, and there are directors who shot Jackie’s films in Hong Kong (Jackie included) whose work is basically cut and pasted into RUSH HOUR. There’s no doubt Brett understood the exuberant joy that was part of those Hong Kong films, and finally doing it in an American movie must have been a gas.
When Ratner did X-MEN 3 last year, he took a lot of shit from a lot of puffed-up fanboys who were ready to hate him no matter what, and the sad part of that is that he was working in Brett The Mimic mode again, channeling Bryan Singer as much as Singer was busy trying to ape Richard Donner. I’m willing to bet Singer’s X-MEN 3 wouldn’t have been as dramatically different from Brett’s as people imagine. I like the X-MEN movies, but they’re all highly condensed cut-and-paste versions of comic continuity. Not one of them could be called “faithful,” but for some reason, fans accepted that when Singer was at the helm, but not when Ratner was. I thought X3 fit into the series well, and even if it’s not the giant apocalyptic finale to the series so far that people had hoped for, it’s good.
The problem with RUSH HOUR 3 is that Ratner is now in the unenviable position of having to try to mimic himself, and since he had nothing original to say in the first place, this echo-of-an-echo-of-an-echo has finally gone creatively belly up. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a major studio franchise film delivered with this little enthusiasm or energy. I think I’d have to go back to BEVERLY HILLS COP 3 for another example of something this far off the rails. The problems are so numerous that it’s hard to know where to start. For one thing, this script is insulting. Jeff Nathanson is a better writer than this, but my guess is that the development process was such a pain in the ass on this one that by the time they finally got a script that everyone said yes to doing, Nathanson was pretty much just giving them the bare bones. By all accounts, there were numerous attempts at putting together a script for RH3, and they were all rejected by either Chan or, more frequently, Tucker. I can’t imagine what it was about this script that made Tucker think, “Ah, yes, that’s the one.” Even as I was watching it, I would have been hard pressed to tell you the story. It’s not a narrative. It’s not even an attempt at a narrative. It’s a series of loosely connected cookie-cutter scenes designed to let Chris Tucker yell and Jackie Chan act adorably confused. And that’s it. It’s pathetic storytelling, even for an action-comedy. There’s a point at which indifference by filmmakers becomes open contempt, and this film exists well over the line. If you can’t predict every single beat of this film from the first 20 minutes, then you’ve never, ever, ever seen a movie before.
And I’m sorry... I have been a Jackie Chan fan for a lot of years. If you read this report from seven years ago, there was a time when I thought Jackie was still as sharp and capable as he’d ever been on film, and I was excited to see what he was doing.
But that was seven years ago, and at least in this picture, I was actively uncomfortable watching Jackie go through his paces. There’s nothing exciting about any of the work he does here, and just saying “Well, Jackie Chan’s awesome” doesn’t cut it. He was a star because of his physical comedy, his insane drive to do everything for real, and the way he captured his craziest feats on film. Here, there doesn’t appear to be a single genuine stunt or a moment of peril or even a clever graceful bit of physical comedy. Jackie just sort of walks through the film, stunt doubles handling everything, or bad special effects supporting the more outlandish ideas. I don’t care how much affection you have for Jackie’s good work... this isn’t good work. And just pointing at the past reflexively doesn’t make this good work. Period.
But at least Jackie maintains some dignity here. Chris Tucker is done. Finished. Out of the business as far as I’m concerned. When you go six years between movies, and when all you’ve made in the last ten years are three movies in the same series, and with longer and longer between each movie, chances are you’re going to get stale. And Tucker has gone way past stale at this point. It’s embarrassing watching him mug in this movie. There’s one “scene” where Jackie Chan goes upstairs with a woman to get information, and Tucker follows them up because he thinks they’re going to fuck. And as the woman attacks Jackie and beats him up, Tucker stands in the hallway, snickering and mugging shamelessly, and making occasional comments like, “Tear it up, Lee!” And it seems to go on for... ohhh... forty minutes? Is that possible? That’s what it seemed like, anyway. This moronic sub-THREE’S COMPANY set-up is milked and milked and milked and milked, and all Tucker does is mug. That’s what he does in every scene. Mug and bug his eyes out and scream. And it’s not funny. Not once. And when it’s at its least funny, he cranks up the volume so that you won’t think about it.
I liked Tucker. I love the first FRIDAY. I like his work in DEAD PRESIDENTS and JACKIE BROWN and even his controversial turn in THE FIFTH ELEMENT.
And, yeah, I thought he was funny in MONEY TALKS and the first RUSH HOUR. But since then, he has consistently sold his talent down the river, and at this point, I don’t see any indication that Chris Tucker is ever going to be anything but a stooge in film again. And that’s depressing. I would think that anyone who genuinely enjoyed the first RUSH HOUR would be depressed by this movie, upset by the nadir it represents, instead of apologizing for it and trying to pass it off as “more of the same.” If the first film had been half as bad as this one, there wouldn’t be a RUSH HOUR 3. This is a property that’s coasting on fumes at this point, and if New Line wants to correct the tailspin they’ve been in creatively, then I suggest more risks a la SHOOT ‘EM UP and fewer of these cynical, empty-hearted money grabs that are just an insult to the audience.
We deserve better. That’s all there is to it.
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
