Rush Hour 2 Review
by Karina Montgomery (karina AT cinerina DOT com)June 21st, 2002
Rush Hour 2
Matinee with Snacks
How ironic that the very companion who ribs me about over-using this rating was my companion for this film? But it's true - this film is rock-em sock-em enough, funny enough, and interesting enough (plotwise) to earn my penultimate rating, basically a B+. First of all let me just say that Jackie has still got it. It's the little things that are more impressive than the big ones sometimes - flipping around with a dumpster, scaling a bamboo scaffold in seconds, slipping through a tiny tiny space. Jackie also is willing to relinquish some (but not all) the joke-telling to motormouth Chris Tucker, who gets them into huge amounts of trouble, with amusing conclusions.
It's a real action movie, but it is also a real cop/buddy comedy, and the chemistry between Tucker and Chan is priceless. Zhang Ziyi from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is in this film too, as cool and collected as Lucy Liu, but as delicate as a lotus blossomŠ.or is she. What a treat! As an extra delight, Lalo Schifrin (most recently he did music for Rush Hour 1 but he also did a little ditty called the Mission: Impossible theme) composed the music, and the resultant cheese-kitsch helps keep the humor going even in a perilous gang fight.
Chan and Tucker jump right into things, the main advantage of a sequel, so there is little set up for their relationship - I was briefly at a loss, not having seen Rush Hour since it came out in 1998. Not to worry, little needs explaining in a good Jackie Chan movie and no one disappoints us by the end. One trend I am noticing with guy-guy buddy comedies is the addition of a shopping foray, and this film is no exception. Very amusing cameo by Jeremy Piven, whom we all love. Don Cheadle also gets to whup a little behind in a bizarre small role.
Speaking of trends, most people know that all Jackie Chan movies also have outtakes at the end, and this one is no exception - and my huge Chan fan companion (he actually inducted me into the fandom) agreed with me that these were the funniest in a good long while. So, what a winner! I'm not going to give anything away. Chan's American movies benefit from a little more accessible storytelling and jokes, as well as no horrible, horrible actors as in some imports from the past, and I think he is enjoying it as much as we are.
It's fun, it's well-paced, it has laughs and stunts and the delicious tension of not knowing who is a good guy and who is not, and of course, Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. It's doing bangup at the box office - and it deserves to.
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These reviews (c) 2002 Karina Montgomery. Please feel free to forward but just credit the reviewer in the text. Thanks.
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