Review of Rush Hour 3 (2007) by Josh W — 03 Apr 2015

Given that this film was released six years after its predecessor, you'd think that the producers would have adopted a new approach for this film. Instead, they somehow came to the conclusion that people wanted to see a rehash of the previous Rush Hour films.

The most obvious problem with this film is that it's afraid to take risks. Throughout the whole film, the characters act so much like the previous film that it actually comes across as tired and hackneyed, with Chris Tucker's character making more the same old jokes, just with some added racism thrown in.

As for the story, let's just say that the only good thing I can say as that it at least gets to the point. All in all, the story is essentially a cheap rehash of what would have been seen in the previous films, complete with yet another triad plot.

The change of scenery adds nothing, and also does nothing to disguise a generally poor attempt to milk the success of an outdated buddy cop formula. Even the action scenes feel repetitive, but what's worse is that the producers seem to have neutered some of the violence.

The only thing worse than making a cheap rehash of a previous film is watering the film down in order to attract a wider audience, and thus hopefully making more money. To be fair, the film itself isn't strictly terrible.

In fact, it does have a few decently funny moments, but it's criminally unnecessary, and it lacks everything that made the original films fun to begin with, and even if it didn't, it's simply too familiar, too safe, and too loaded with clichés for it to have any real entertainment value.