Review: Rush Hour 2

Jackie Chan lost his grace years ago and Chris Tucker has the voice and personality only a blind/deaf canine could love unconditionally.

Rush Hour 2
Photo: New Line Cinema

Jackie Chan lost his grace years ago and Chris Tucker has the voice and personality only a blind/deaf canine could love unconditionally. Still, fools rush in to celebrate their bland vaudeville routines. When speaking to a colleague last week, I suggested that great movies (Apocalypse Now Redux) are worthy of lengthy discourse. Rush Hour 2 isn’t even bad enough to merit a lengthy tirade so why mince words when this film is too bland to even deserve this dismissive paragraph? Despite the film’s preponderance of cheap racial jokes (Tucker’s Detective Carter accidentally punches Chan’s Inspector Lee, his apologia grounded in a brother’s opinion that all Asians look alike), the film is all equal opportunity. Carter may want to bitch slap Lee back to Bangkok but Lee later returns the threat by saying he wants to bitch slap Carter back to Africa. How droll! Zhang Ziyi is the film’s saving grace if only because the beauty has a way of sweetly knocking Tucker into silent surrender. In those precious, post-kick moments, Rush Hour 2 achieves a near state of bliss.

Score: 
 Cast: Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, Chris Penn, Don Cheadle, Roselyn Sanchez, Harris Yulin, Alan King, John Lone, Zhang Ziyi  Director: Brett Ratner  Screenwriter: Jeff Nathanson  Distributor: New Line Cinema  Running Time: 100 min  Rating: PG-13  Year: 2001  Buy: Video, Soundtrack

Ed Gonzalez

Ed Gonzalez is the co-founder of Slant Magazine. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

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