At least it won’t be alone in a summer that has seen what must be a record-setting number of sequels released (Dr. Dolittle 2, The Mummy Returns, Scary Movie 2, Crocodile Dundee 3, Jurassic Park 3, Pokemon 3, etc., etc…). Rush Hour 2 continues a disturbing trend toward watered down, cinematic mediocrity. Made one hundred million on your first or second outing? Why not do an uninspired sequel that will surely rival the profits of the previous films! The sad thing is, with a Mummy prequel coming next summer (along with Austin Powers 3 and several others), this trend is far from over.
It’s here that I think a little distinction needs to be made between a film and a movie. A film challenges its viewers both intellectually and viscerally and, in its best instances, causes them to re-evaluate their world. On the other hand, a movie is pure entertainment and escape. Nothing more, nothing less. There is a place and a need for both in today’s cinema and it seems that one could quite often benefit by learning from the other. Nowadays, though, it seems that we have three categories: films, movies and – gulp – sequels.
I went into Rush Hour 2 hoping to see a movie on par with the first, which I really liked. What I actually saw was nothing more than a boring re-hashing of the plot of the already bad Lethal Weapon 3 (or was it 2?), in which an international gang tries to perfect a counterfeit one hundred dollar bill. You know where this is going.
Yes, Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker do reprise their roles of Detectives Lee and Carter and, yes, it is sort of set in China (a third of the way through the sequel we shift back to LA and Vegas). The problem is, Rush Hour 2 expects us to accept that Lee and Carter are enough for an entire movie. No need for plot here. Lee is the high- flying stunt guy and Carter is the wise-ass. Sure, the counterfeit business provides what looks like a plot, and the writers try to tie in Lee’s father and his old partner, Ricky Tan, the master of the conspiratorial Triad gang, into the story along with an LA mogul, some sultry Secret Service agent (Is she good or bad? Do we care?) and plenty of cameos (the great Don Cheadle as a restaurant owner, Jeremy Pivens of PCU fame as a gay clothier) but by the time the first half-hour was over, the boredom made sure it all only mattered a little. Chan does nothing physically spectacular and Tucker has only one really memorable scene in which he does Michael Jackson in a Chinese gangster karaoke bar. By the way, how is it that whenever these two fall from a tall building there is always something under them to cushion their fall? You saw it all done so much better in the first Rush Hour.
Oh, and Zhang Ziyi? The brilliant young actress from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that internet junkies have been drooling over since they heard she’d be squaring off against Jackie Chan? They don’t even fight. Not once. It seems that the writers/ director thought it better that she go against Tucker for comedic purposes. Nice try with that one.
Which brings me to the out-takes. When a movie that barely clocks in at one hour, twenty minutes spends six or seven minutes on hilarious out-takes that make you forget how horrible the rest of the movie was, you know you saw a movie with potential. And the potential for the inevitable Rush Hour 3 is even worse.
+ marc ruppell
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