‘Rush Hour 3’ among the summer’s worst films

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In theaters

RUSH HOUR 3 directed by Brett Ratner, written by Jeff Nathanson, 90 minutes, rated PG-13.

The new Brett Ratner movie, “Rush Hour 3,” is a lazy pileup of stale ideas and so-so stuntwork that fails to recharge the franchise in ways that, say, the recent “The Bourne Ultimatum” did. That movie also was the third in a series, but instead of sitting back and trading off its good reputation, it made an effort to offer fresh thinking within a familiar scene.

Not so for “Rush Hour 3.”

Instead of holding the bar high for the slapstick genre as “Ultimatum” did for the action genre, this cloying, fractured slop of uninspired swill is content to swim among summer’s worst. It’s here only to grab the box office booty, which it achieved, neatly earning New Line Cinema nearly $50 million last weekend alone. Good for them. Unfortunately, not so good for us.

Returning for a paycheck after six years apart are Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, who reprise their roles as Inspector Lee and LAPD Detective James Carter, a mismatched couple of cops who find themselves trying to track down those responsible for attempting to assassinate the Chinese ambassador Han (Tzi Ma).

When they promise the ambassador’s daughter (Zhang Jingchu) that they will track down Han’s would-be killers, it’s a situation that pulls Lee and Carter out of Los Angeles and into Paris, where Ratner and screenwriter Jeff Nathanson find unconvincing ways to launch into a diatribe against the war in Iraq.

They do so by shoehorning into the script a testy French cab driver (Yvan Attal) whose hatred of Americans is just one of the film’s many cliches.

Initially, the cab driver is here only to bash, and while his rant against the war does have its merits, in this film, it presses against the comedic edges in ways that rub them raw.

Is anyone really going to “Rush Hour 3” for social commentary? Isn’t that sort of like going to “Porky’s Revenge” expecting Merchant Ivory? Still, the movie presses onward, laying waste with a mess of lame jokes as the duo take on Lee’s evil brother (Hiroyuki Sanada) and an evildoer played by a slumming Max von Sydow.

Roman Polanski shows up to twirl his mustache in a bum bit part, but nothing here is as awful as the nerve-jangling falsetto of Tucker’s voice. If ever there was a person who has worn out his welcome onscreen, it’s this dude – and he’s made only three films in the past nine years, all of them “Rush Hour” movies. Perhaps it’s time for a vocal coach. Or time to retire.

Unlike the last two films, “Rush Hour 3” lacks the great stunt work audiences expect, though that shouldn’t come as a surprise. Chan now is 53, and he no longer can launch into the beautifully conceived fight scenes for which he became famous. Toward the end of the movie, he is allowed an extended sequence atop the Eiffel Tower that’s fun to watch, even if it isn’t him doing all the work; but the scene comes too late in a film that never should have been allowed to park curbside in the first place.

Grade: D

On DVD and Blu-ray

PERFECT STRANGER directed by James Foley, written by Todd Komarnicki, 109 minutes, rated R.

James Foley’s “Perfect Stranger” stars Halle Berry as a questionable journalist caught in a sensationally stupid plot. The film is another one of those glossy, manufactured thrillers that exist to generate a final twist that’s so unexpected, the film must wend back through key plot points to prove that nobody watching it was misled along the way.

Last year’s “The Prestige” is a fine example of a movie that did this well. But in “Stranger,” when the big reveal comes, you pause over your pail of Pepsi and realize that not only have you been had, but that the filmmakers got only half the title right.

After nearly two hours, it’s clear you never knew anyone in this movie. The film stars Berry as any number of people. As the story begins, she’s Rowena Price, a reporter for The New York Courier who writes under a male pseudonym and who quits her paper after she’s screwed out of a running story she “worked on for six months.”

Conveniently, her old friend, Grace (Nicki Aycox), appears with an agenda – investigate Grace’s former lover, Harrison Hill (Bruce Willis), the successful, married media mogul who keeps an apartment on the sly so he can bed his share of women.

When Grace winds up dead, Ro believes Hill might be the murderer and thus finds herself working the case with the help of her former newspaper colleague Miles (Giovanni Ribisi), a tech geek whose attraction to Ro goes deeper than mere friendship.

What ensues feels like stock footage culled from other, better thrillers, with the undeniably talented Berry following her fellow actors in trying to connect to a movie whose storyline splits and frays.

In an effort to learn more about Hill, Ro transforms herself into the temporary worker Katherine Pogue and infiltrates his organization. This leads to a potentially deadly flirtation with Hill, who spends his days talking dirty in Internet chat rooms, about which Ro, a seasoned journalist, apparently never knew existed. (Perhaps the world is a perfect stranger to her.)

Anyway, with Miles’ help, Ro morphs into Veronica, and the web she weaves on the Web with Hill helps set the movie up for its stunner of an ending. And it is a stunner, so much so that it shocks you out of the moment and into reality, where the film doesn’t exist, though where the ability to reason can flourish.

Although the movie makes a case for its ending, taking you by the hand and walking you through the stink of all its red herrings, the effort is wasted.

Ro sounds like roe for a reason, and the logic behind this film was fishy from the start.

Grade: C-

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays, Fridays and weekends in Lifestyle, as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.

THE VIDEO/DVD CORNER

Renting a video or a DVD? BDN film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those capped and in bold print are new to video stores this week.

Akeelah and the Bee-B+

Apocalypto-C

Are We Done Yet-D

Babel-A-

Because I Said So-C

Blood Diamond-C+

Borat-B+

Breach-B+

Breaking and Entering-C-

Bridge to Terabithia-B+

Casino Royale-A

Charlie Chan Collection, Vol. 3-B

Charlotte’s Web-B+

Children of Men-A

The Dead Girl-A-

Dead Silence-F

Deja Vu-C+

The Departed-A

The Devil Wears Prada-B+

Disturbia-B

Doctor Who: Robot-B

Dreamgirls-B

Eragon-C

Erin Brockovich HD DVD-B+

Everyone’s Hero-C+

Fail Safe-A-

Flags of Our Fathers-B+

Flushed Away-B+

The Fountain-D

Fracture-C

Ghost Rider-C-

The Good German-C

The Good Shepherd-B-

Half Nelson-A-

Hannibal Rising-C

Happy Feet-A-

The Henrik Ibsen Collection-A-

The Hills Have Eyes II-D

The History Boys-B+

The Holiday-C+

Hollywoodland-C

The Illusionist-B+

Infamous-B+

Invincible-B

Jackass Number Two-B

Kinky Boots-B+

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang-B+

Last Holiday-B

The Last King of Scotland-B+

Letters from Iwo Jima-B+

Little Children-A-

Little Miss Sunshine-B+

The Lives of Others DVD and Blu-Ray-A

The Marine-C+

Meet the Fockers HD DVD-B-

Monster House-B+

Music and Lyrics-B

My Super Ex-Girlfriend-A-

Night at the Museum-C+

Notes on a Scandal-B+

The Number 23-D

The Painted Veil-B+

Pan’s Labyrinth-A

Perfect Stranger DVD and Blu-Ray-C-

Premonition-C-

The Prestige-B+

Primeval-D

The Queen-A-

Rocky Balboa-B+

A Scanner Darkly-B+

Sherrybaby-B+

Shooter-C+

Shut Up & Sing-A-

Snakes On A Plane: A-

This Film is Not Yet Rated-B-

TMNT-C

300-C-

Unaccompanied Minors-C

United 93-A

Vacancy-C+

Venus-B+

Zodiac-C