Who's the highest paid actor in the world? Forget your Brad Pitts and Matt Damons because it's Chris Tucker who scored a record $US25m for reprising his role as Detective James Carter in Rush Hour 3.
He's re-teamed with Jackie Chan - $13m – and this time the bickering buddy cops are in Paris, trying to track down a list of Chinese Triad chieftains. There they join forces with a Parisian taxi driver and have to protect an exotic French beauty who holds the key to busting open the centuries-old secrets of Asian crime syndicates.
Director Brett Ratner – payday, $8m – uses Paris in postcard fashion, from the chase on the Champs Elysee to the fight-scene climax on the Eiffel Tower.
In a year when comedies like Knocked Up and action like Bourne Ultimatum have been very heartfelt, Rush Hour 3 is as big and hollow as an oil tanker on its way to a refill. Ratner stages the action set pieces well enough but you never really care about the outcome.
When Jackie Chan's not high-kicking, he's deadwood. The dude, likeable though he is, just can't act. It's left to Chris Tucker, Mr $25m, to be the driving force of the film – and his mouth never stops moving. Most of his try-hard dialogue is simply annoying schtick, but he does score about five good laughs with throwaway lines. So, that's about $5m per laugh – nice work, fella.
Much funnier is Yvan Atal, the Israeli actor who plays the cab driver George whose seething anti-Americanism gives way to a Starbucks-loving, no-brains, kill-em-all attitude.
Max Von Sydow will want to forget his role as an international official, but in terms of embarrassment, sticking his hand up our heroes' butts is the worst thing Roman Polanski has done for his career since he hopped into Jack Nicholson's spa.
I haven't seen the first two Rush Hour films but I'm told this is standard fare in the franchise. It's the sort of movie where you can feel your IQ draining away as you watch it, but it's so big and dumb it's impossible to hate with any passion. Two stars.
