Saturday, June 10, 2023

Rush Hour 2

Rush Hour 2 (2001)

Runtime: 90 minutes

Directed by: Brett Ratner

Starring: Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, John Lone, Ziyi Zhang, Roslyn Sanchez

From: New Line Cinema

Boy, does a little bit of Chris Tucker go a long way. Last December I revisited the first Rush Hour and it was still enjoyable despite some moments & lines of dialogue that haven’t aged too well. Here, Tucker’s act was decidedly more off-color. He was more a buffoon, was an unrepentant horndog and made plenty of racially insensitive remarks. This movie is quite dated, in other words; that did not automatically ruin the experience but truth be told, Rush Hour 3 (only seen once by me) I recalled as the only film where I thought his character was OOT preposterous—I was mistaken.

This is set right after the first film, with Lee & Carter “on vacation” in Hong Kong. In actuality, Lee is still on the job and they are roped into investigating a smuggling ring. There are obvious similarities with the OG movie, in other words. Thank heavens then that the action still delivered. There are fun setpieces and as expected Chan still delivered at this time with the ass-kicking. There are still laughs to be had and I appreciated that the first act was set & filmed in Hong Kong; the final act is in a famous American city.

Even if this is reminiscent of the first Rush Hour and also some famous films from the past, at least I was still entertained by the action and the cameos I won’t spoil, along with familiar faces like Harris Yulin and John Lone. I’ll never like Brett Ratner but no matter if I find Rush Hour 3 to be as bad as I recall (that review is coming tomorrow) at least I can still like the first two in the series.

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