After an attempted assassination on Ambassador Han (Tzi Ma), Inspector Lee (Jackie Chan) and Detective Carter (Chris Tucker) are back in action as they head to Paris to protect a French woman named Genevieve (Noémie Lenoir) with knowledge of the Triads’ secret leaders. Lee also holds secret meetings with a United Nations authority, Reynard (Max von Sydow), but his personal struggles with a Chinese criminal mastermind named Kenji (Hiroyuki Sanada), which reveals that it’s Lee’s long-lost brother. But their race will take them across the city, from the depths of the Paris underground to the breathtaking heights of the Eiffel Tower, as they fight to outrun the world’s most deadly criminals and save the day.
Funny story involving this film, I didn’t know it existed (which is a rare thing). I know it came out in 2007 but I don’t remember ever hearing anything about it. I thought the idea of a third one was a joke coming from the blooper reel during the end credits of Rush Hour 2. I finally learned about it when I saw it on a counter in my house along with a bunch of other blu-rays. The story for this one is after a failed assassination attempt on Ambassador Han (Ma), Inspector Lee (Chan) and Detective Carter (Tucker) are back in action in Paris where they must protect a French woman named Genevieve (Lenoir) who has knowledge of the identities of the secret Triad leaders. Meanwhile, Lee and Carter must deal with the Chinese criminal mastermind named Kenji (Sanada) who is also Lee’s brother. There is also a high ranking United Nations member named Reynard (von Sydow) but I didn’t really understand his purpose in the film and I didn’t think he was necessary. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the first two Rush Hour films but I don’t think you need to have seen those to understand what’s going on here. Also if you’ve seen the first two films, then you’ve kind of already seen this one. What I’m saying is that this edition does not bring much of anything new to the table. This one is just more of Lee and Carter together again, running around trying to solve another case. Lee does most of the heavy lifting here in the action scenes while Carter is the more goofy, loud, and obnoxious one. I don’t normally find loud and obnoxious characters funny (i.e. Kevin Hart who seems to always play Chris Tucker ripoffs) but I did in this case. His slapstick and humour kept me entertained and Chan partaked in some of this as well which was nice to see. Their chemistry is as good as always and was fun to watch. The action scenes were very well done, mostly involving Chan, with some good choreography utilizing Chan’s abilities. The only real problem I had with this film was the story as never really understood what was going on as there were a lot of moving parts here and I found that it just lacked focus. What didn’t help was it’s relatively short running time. This film probably didn’t have to be made (let alone the second) but it was definitely nice to see Lee and Carter again. As I am writing this, a fourth film is rumoured starring Chan and Tucker so this may not be the last time we see them.
Score: 6/10
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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.
