Rush Hour 3 Review

Rush Hour 3
*****

It’s the end of the summer, the time of the year when every movie you forgot was coming out just happens to arrive. You’ve served your duty in sitting through the elegant Harry Potter, the expensive looking Transformers, and the touching Once, but now you can finally enjoy Rush Hour 3, the new action/comedy featuring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. If you don’t know what it’s about, I can attempt to summarize it. Two LA cops, one who is African-American and one who is Chinese, are drawn into a dangerous conspiracy. The movie itself is a combination of light-hearted action scenes with a hefty serving of comedy, often bordering on racist. I know what your thinking, comedy is fine with me, but racist jokes, especially pertaining to the Chinese dialect, are where I draw the rine. Werr, it’s rearry nothing to worry about, because, let’s face it, it is funny. Rearry funny. In fact, I found myserf raughing rearry hard throughout the entire firm.
The fact is, I could easily imagine someone becoming offended at any other film that attempted to make jokes such as these, but the characters in Rush Hour 3 are simply so kind and lovable, it’s hard to get angry at them. The movie itself is actually a testament to the great performances by Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan in how they are capable of creating characters so light-hearted and fun that the audience simply wants to stick around them for company. In fact, it could be said for all the jokes and sexual references in the movie that there’s hardly anything outright insulting, and in this day and age, that is quite a feat.
I can imagine it would be easy for any critic to criticize what’s wrong with Rush Hour 3; however, I’m simply at a loss for words. The movie is a sequel, specifically, the third sequel in the series. If it’s not what you’re expecting then you haven’t seen a movie in the past ten years. For me, it was everything I wanted. It is simply perfect for what it is, and if you don’t know what “it” is, then “it” is simply not for you.
What the movie certainly gets right is its characters, who are lovable right down to the supporting characters. There’s the sweet and surprisingly aggressive French cab driver, the intriguing and mysterious singer, and even the crazy knife-throwing-Asian lady has her charms. Everyone is dually accounted for, and they get their own fair share of screen time. Speaking of the screen, this film is beautifully shot too. If you’re looking for it, you’ll notice some wonderful cinematography that’ll make you wonder what director Brett Ratner will go on to do once the sequels stop rolling.
In the meantime, Rush Hour 3 is easily one of the most satisfying movies I’ve seen this summer. It’s a film that succeeds on the basis of its characters and downright creativity, which is more than you can say for many of the big budget movies to grace the screens this summer. See it.