Rush Hour 3

This is easily one of the worst movies we've had the un-pleasure of watching. As you may or may not have noticed in my reviews I compare each movie to Dungeons and Dragons, the worst movie we have ever watched in our little weekly get together. DD was not enjoyable on any level, intentional or unintentional. There are lots of bad movies but often they're so bad that it's actually interesting or enjoyable to watch them, kind of like a car crash or snuff film, but DD was not pleasant in any way, it was just minutes and minutes of failure you aren't interested in seeing. The second worst movie we have ever seen was Stuck on You, horrible but not horrible enough to dethrone DD. Is Rush Hour 3 bad enough to take the top spot?

The original Rush Hour concept was simple; mix 1 part Chris Tucker comedy, with 1 part Jackie Chan high wire action and you've got a killer buddy-action-comedy flick. So what went wrong here?

Gripes:

1st the comedy; it's old, its tired, it ain't there. There are basically three gags in the whole movie and they are recycled ad nauseum. Gag #1 Chris Tucker Yells and Yells and Yells. I don't know what happened to Chris Tucker but the novelty of his yelling has worn off. I believe it wore off somewhere near the end of Rush Hour 1. Gag #2 Chris Tucker Sings Sooooouuuuuul Music and Dances All Kooky. The movie opens with this and it's not funny from the get go. He just looked bored here, like he wanted to leave and had something better to do. He probably did - heck going to take a dump would have been better than this. The guy needs new shtick bad. Note; apparently he got paid 20million for this movie so really he gets the last laugh on us. Gag #3 Jackie Chan talks in Ebonics. Not since Cousin Balky has mangling the english language been used to such ineffective comic effect. Basically this just isn't a funny movie, it's not even funny for not being funny. If you want comedy look elsewhere.

2nd the action: Jackie Chan ain't as spry as he used to be. He's getting old and he can't do all the stunts that he could before. Really he's geriatric at this point and I think the biggest stunt he managed here was jumping and hiding in a big flag. Other wise he just kicks people and jumps over small coffee tables. Not very good. Worse; I guess Tucker got tired of playing the incompetent that messes everything up and he wanted to do some kung fu too. There's even some ridiculous expository dialogue (that Tucker yells at top volume) that explains this. It's stupid and it fucks up the formula; Tucker mucks up in a humourous way, Chan saves him in creative action packed way. Instead they just clumsily hit stuff and chan jumps over a very small table. Whopee. I guess that's the biggest problem here, this movie feels old and tired like it's really been done before, but at the same time it tinkers enough with the tried and true formula to not even give you the pay off seeing something you're used to working. In the end we just tuned out of the movie and let it play out to it's predictable boring conclusion.

What Worked

Say what you will about Brett Ratner he can direct some good action sequences, or maybe that was his second unit. But there are good moments in a car chase scene. That's about it.

So Is it Worse than Dungeons and Dragons?

No. It's not even worse than Stuck on You. Don't get me wrong this is horrible, the worst most uninteresting thing we've seen in weeks. A movie that seeks out your hate gland and tickles it in full force but it has one thing going for it: Money. This movie had a big budget and you can see the dollars on the screen. From the car chases to the predictable scenes of our heroes hanging (and yelling constantly yelling) from the Eifle Tower it all looks so good and that was the most enjoyable thing. DD had nothing like that, it looked like it was made for a hundred bucks even though probably it cost millions, so therefore Rush Hour 3 was better.

Mediocrity Scale

Not Even Mediocre.

Food

We shirked the store bought processed food for delicious home made chocolate cake. Nuff said.

Street Kings? Kings of the Street?

Shit I just watched it last night and I've already forgotten the title. Anyways Forrest Whittaker and Keanu Reeves are crooked cops in L.A. But then Keanu is crooked to do good and it turns out that Whittaker is just crooked and so is all of Keanu's unit. Also Johnny Flame or whatever is there too and he gets killed. And that doctor guy Bones? Mothers? whatever he walks with a limp and is really raspy he's there too and he appears every once in a while to be all raspy and shit. I'm telling you all of this but you already know this from the first frame of film because it's all really predictable and by the numbers and the big twist isn't really any kind of twist plus there's another twist that is so ridiculous that it's best left ignored. Still I liked it. There's people shooting at each other and murder and it's all rated R and it's kind of fun. I also liked Keanu as this older experienced kind of killer cop guy. I beleived it especially next to the Flalme On guy, I really saw the experienced successful sci-fi franchise veteran next to the new up and commer.

Gripes: Two Words: Forrest Whittaker. I just don't see what people like about this guy, I can't stand him. I don't know why but he just rubs me in a bad way. He always looks like he's about to cry or something. I just want to pinch his cheeks and tickle his belly and say "it's alright don't cry".

What Worked: A guy gets shot throught the back of the head and the front of his face gets blown off, another guy gets machined gunned repeatedly by two guys until he's just kind of jello. I love that kind of stuff, it takes me back to my fondest childhood memories of sneaking into Rated R movies at the local ciniplex.

Worse Thank Dungeons and Dragons? No. It did not incite any hate or desire to track down the movie makers, chain them to a wall, whip their backs, then pour lemon juice on the wounds like DD did.

Mediocrity Scale: A bit above Mediocre Violence.

Food: We started with a litre each of Sinful Cookie or something Ice Cream. Sweet, pretty creamy cheap Safeway Ice Cream that gave me bad farts and weird poo due to my mild lactose intolerance. Next we followed it up with some Pringles Restaurant Special Chips in Hamburger flavour. Yes that's right Hamburger. There were pictures of Hamburgers on the box to signify that it was indeed Hamburger flavour. Unfortunately it just tasted like a combo of ketchup, cheese, and smoke flavour and was quite disappointing. We didn't even finish it. To drink the always venerable Coke Zero.