Rush Hour 3: Critic Reviews

The eager yet lazy Rush Hour 3 often made me think of one of those mediocre Beverly Hills Cop sequels; it's that derivative and slapdash.

The junky, clunky, grimly unfunny Rush Hour 3 isn't the worst movie of the summer. But it's an enervating bummer nonetheless.

They're back! That lovable duo, back to kick some ass and ogle some babes! Yes - it's Max Von Sydow and Roman Polanski.

The final, and anti-climactic, 'threequel' of the summer has nothing new to say. A staleness pervades the film, despite all efforts to inject freshness and excitement into a tired story.

At the risk of eternal damnation on the Internet, I admit to laughing at -- even feeling momentarily touched by -- Rush Hour 3.

This movie makes a fine replacement for the previous two installments.

This may be the best-looking film in the series; certainly, the Paris setting, with a climactic battle among the girders of the Eiffel Tower, keeps the visuals interesting. Better you buy a postcard.

Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker have been through a lot together... Are they tired? Perhaps not, but their antics and action sequences certainly are.

It seems fairly likely that this is a case of returning once more with a bucket before the well runs dry.

Instead of introducing a new protagonist (e.g. Chris Rock in Lethal Weapon IV) or a fresh plot to reconnect with the audience, Rush Hour 3 bludgeons us with the same old shtick.

Chan shows he still has the chops during a showdown at the Eiffel Tower, but you'd think the movie's reported budget of $140 million might have bought Tucker at least one side-splitting gag.

By no means is it a great movie, but it is great slapstick fun, one of summer's guilty pleasures.

The scripting is terrible, the direction lacks energy and the fights -- this movie's entire reason for being -- are filmed in Jumblevison.

Rush Hour 3 is everything a sequel shouldn't be: wasteful, unwanted, crass, inept and just plain awful to watch.

Helmer Ratner knows the Rush Hour routine by heart, and production values, even with several new contributors to the franchise (including solid lenser J. Michael Muro), maintain the franchise's sharp, shiny look.

After Max von Sydow played chess with Death in The Seventh Seal, he was condemned to hell: a prominent role in Rush Hour 3.

It's a tedious, soulless, junky comedy whose outtakes reveal just how little effort aside from writing Tucker that big fat check and another for renting the Eiffel Tower was put into getting it on the screen.

Rush Hour 3 is a blockbuster sequel filmed with the enthusiasm of jury duty and as barren of novelty as a burned-out souvenir stand.

Although it has been six years since Rush Hour 2 came out, almost everything about Rush Hour 3 has a familiar inevitability about it.

There's no doubt that Rush Hour 3 is anything but a mess. And yet there were moments when I found myself laughing giddily at the inanity of it all, and other moments when the picture was so beautiful to look at that I almost forgot its faults.

It's hard to think of a sadder commentary about Hollywood's sequel fetish than the existence of Rush Hour 3.

Hits the ground stalling.

Director Brett Ratner, who built a career on this buddy cop franchise, has cobbled together a lazy and formulaic action comedy that is neither thrilling nor particularly funny.

The division of labor is the same as in the first two films: Jackie kicks ass; Chris kicks sass. Ratner's challenge is giving the stars enough comedy byplay to keep audiences awake between the big action scenes, and RH 3 gets it done.

Director Brett Ratner, screenwriter Jeff Nathanson and stars Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker appear to be trying to save the planet one gag at a time by recycling as much material as humanly possible.