Review of RUSH HOUR 2

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Review by Mark Dujsik

You can’t walk into a sequel expecting anything revolutionary. In fact, you can’t walk into most movies anymore expecting anything revolutionary, but that’s beside the point. If anything, you hope you encounter a rare sequel that hits the same notes as the first, or, even rarer, a sequel that surpasses the original. Of course, this all depends on how good the first movie was to begin with, and I enjoyed Rush Hour. It was a lighthearted action-comedy, and it greatly benefited from the stunt work of the magnificent Jackie Chan and the nonstop joking of Chris Tucker. Both return in the sequel, and the action scenes are still good, but the comedy itself is very slight.

And then there’s the plot. Detective Inspector Lee (Chan) and Detective James Carter (Tucker) are in Hong Kong, where we last left them heading. The U.S. Embassy has just been bombed and two Americans were killed. Carter complains that his vacation has been overrun by Lee’s work, and when Lee gets a call about the bombing, he takes the case. Soon, the two are on the trail of crime syndicate leader Ricky Tan (John Lone), who was once Lee’s father’s partner. After a few mishaps, the Secret Service comes in and reveals that the syndicate is masterminding a smuggling operation, although they’re not exactly sure what’s being smuggled.

Now, it’s not giving too much away saying that the ring is smuggling counterfeit money. How many times have we seen this plot? I swear this setup must be the most tired plot impetus in some time. Do they teach this in screenwriting classes? When you run out of ideas for an action movie, just use the counterfeit money laundering setup. Then, to make matters even more frustrating, the syndicate launders the money through, get this, a casino. Yes, they establish a casino for the sole purpose of clearing the money. It’s a really nice casino, too. Now, doesn’t this defeat the purpose of laundering money? I mean, you launder money to spend it, but if you’re already spending the money on something—like, say, maintaining a casino—before it’s clean, isn’t that bad business? Now, granted, I’m no money laundering expert, but this is a little too absurd.

Plot frustrations aside, the movie doesn’t deliver the humor of the first. The dialogue-driven comedy depends almost entirely on racial stereotyping, and it really borderlines offensive. I’ve seen Chris Tucker add some life into a small role (The Fifth Element) and I’ve seen him carry an otherwise terrible movie (Money Talks), but this is honestly the first time he’s ever gotten on my nerves. His jokes in the movie hit upon just about every Asian stereotype in the book, and it gets embarrassing. When we get back to America, he just keeps going with more. During his big fight with the female villain (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s Zhang Ziyi), I was rooting for her. That’s not a good place to be during your big fight.

Chan, on the other hand, delivers in the fight scenes. There are definitely some good sequences here, like the bamboo scaffolding climb or the massage parlor fight. It has the same breathtaking quality of all of Chan’s material with enough humor thrown in for fun (there’s a great moment where we see how Chan and Tucker differ when running along the side of a semi-truck trailer while suspended in midair). These are not Chan’s best actions sequences, but anything from him is a breath of fresh air among other such movies.

All of Rush Hour 2’s moments come from Chan and his stunt work. There is nothing else here on screen worth seeing, and some of it, the plot (which insults the intelligence of the audience) and most of Tucker (who insults the sensibilities of the audience), is downright embarrassing. Actually, I take that back. Ziyi as the villain is delightfully evil and just as easy on the eyes as she was in Crouching Tiger. I expect and hope that she will become a international crossover star, and let’s hope she gets much better material than this.

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