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I'm a little late with this review-- I actually saw Rush Hour 3 last Tuesday, when I went to visit Chantal. This was essentially our "first date", even though we've been a couple for nine months now. xp Anyway, we saw the film at the Majestic in downtown Silver Spring, which is much nicer than any movie theater where I live. It's been a long time since I've been to a theater with a second floor and an escalator; multiplexes in Williamsburg just aren't that elaborate. It did have one thing in common with pretty much every theater I've seen: a second concessions stand back towards the auditoriums that's not open, and apparently is never open. There must be some sort of industry regulation mandating the presence of auxiliary concessions areas, just in case they get some sort of insanely huge crowd or something.

Anyway, the movie's set five years after Rush Hour 2 and starts off with a funny sequence where Carter (Chris Tucker), a little older and heavier than before but still the same personality-wise, directs traffic while listening to Prince on his iPod. We soon find out that Carter and Lee (Jackie Chan) are barely on speaking terms, but since this is a buddy cop comedy we also know something's going to bring them back together. It doesn't take long: Lee's been assigned to protect the Chinese ambassador, and the guy's shot by a Triad gangster who has connections to Lee's past. The plot gets increasingly convoluted from there, with Carter and Lee jetting off to France to find what turns out to be a list of Triad leaders handed down over the centuries (but to say anything more about where they find the list would be too much of a spoiler). They also become friends with an initially rude cab driver, who develops delusions of becoming a heroic superspy.

The main problem with Rush Hour 3 is that director Brett Ratner has apparently never realized he's not good with drama and human emotion; he's good with elaborately choreographed action sequences and blowing s**t up. So while the film tries to add an element of pathos as Carter and Lee overcome their differences and rediscover their friendship, the movie utterly fails on this level. There's no real character development, and so no real point to these scenes; and Jackie Chan seems to be on autopilot this time around, coming alive only when he gets to stop talking and kick a**. The film's best non-action moments come when Ratner simply lets Tucker do his thing; his clueless confidence in his own sexual magnetism and his tendency to say completely inappropriate things are consistently entertaining. (There's a great scene early on with a nun they bring in to translate when they're interrogating a gangster who only speaks French; the end of this scene is hilarious.)

So, how are the action scenes? They're good, though there really isn't anything here we haven't seen elsewhere in some form or other. The best of the bunch is the scene at a gentleman's club where Carter and Lee are trying to ferret out some information about why the ambassador was shot; Lee faces off against a deadly female assassin, and she gives him a serious run for his money. After that highlight, the movie is competent but not especially inspired; the final battle drags on a little too long, and cribs elements from a lot of other movies in the process. But it does give Tucker a few more good comic moments; you may remember one of these from the trailer (hint: it involves singing).

I found Rush Hour 3 more enjoyable than I'd expected, but still fairly routine and formulaic. We'd decided to see it because we thought we'd enjoy making fun of it together afterwards; but it really wasn't interesting enough for that. Now that I think back on it, we didn't even talk all that much about the movie once we left the theater. It's not terrible, but you won't miss anything if you wait to rent it on DVD.

Rating- 6/10