Chris Tucker (left) and Jackie Chan (right) star in Brett Ratner's Rush Hour 3.
Director: Brett Ratner; Writer: Jeff Nathanson
With Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan
New Line Video
Available Dec. 23, List Price $34.98
Really, what's the deal with Chris Tucker as a movie star? The Atlanta kid with the countertenor motormouth was pretty funny doing supporting roles in House Party 3, Friday and especially Jackie Brown. But he had toplined only one movie, Money Talks, before getting the Rush Hour gig with Hong Kong action icon Jackie Chan. In the past decade he has made only two movies, the Rush Hour sequels; yet he's top-billed in Number 3, for which he was paid, per the Internet Movie Database, "$25,000,000 + 20% back end gross." These are Will Smith numbers — and all for reading lines like, "How do you say 'surrender' in Chinese?"
Like many action movies, RH3 is taut and smart in its construction of the stunt scenes, slack everywhere else. Same goes for the extras on this "Two-Disc Platinum Series" DVD. Ratner's commentary is agreeable, not definitive; it's the making-ofs detailing the sequences in a speeding Paris taxi cab and at the top of the Eiffel Tower that are worth attending to. There's also more of Chan and Tucker's bantering comradeship, which is what gives the series its comic value. Just not $25 million worth.