Picking up from the end of the first movie, Detective James Carter (Tucker) travels back to Hong Kong with his new friend, Detective Lee (Chan). There, they fight Chinese crooks, and they even end up back in America at some point (Los Angeles and ultimately, even Las Vegas). – From IMDB.com
Jonny Sez…
Rush Hour II is like the original Rush Hour. So much so, that I kept thinking it was the same movie. I guess this one takes place in Hong Kong instead of LA. But, I think part of the first one was in Hong Kong… Oh yeah, in part 2, they go to Vegas where Chris Tucker gambles… Something else happens and then everyone but them and the girl they like dies. If you are twelve years old, this shit will blow you away. If not, you will realize that a piece of crap movie just stole ninety minutes from your life.
Rush Hour was funny because it was a neat take on the buddy cop theme. Like Red Heat before it with Belushi and Schwarzenegger, a cool, by-the-book foreign cop shows up in the US and gets paired up with a renegade, balls-to-the-wall cop. Of course, you have the screaming gay Chris Tucker filling in for the much less talented Belushi brother, and Jackie Chan stepping in to fill Arnold’s shoes. Hi jinks ensue. By the way, what I just typed was the first 18 pages of the script for Rush Hour II. I think it even has mostly the same jokes from the first one. If they aren’t identical, then they are rehashed jokes from the first one.
If I remember correctly, in the first Rush Hour there was a scene where Jackie Chan puts on the Beach Boys and Chris Tucker schools him on how lame the Beach Boys are and how he should “Never touch a black man’s radio.” In Rush Hour II, Jackie and Chris are rocking out to the Beach Boys and Jackie says that Chris should, “Never touch a Chinese man’s radio.” Get it?
I think at that point Tucker begins to howl manically and talk about how all Asian’s look alike. The writer(s) took some pretty racist material and turned it into lighthearted humor by having it be directed against Asians instead of blacks. Just like in Spinal Tap, where tying a woman up is sexist, but having her tie you up is sexy. A very fine line exists between genius and stupid. The thing is, Rush Hour II never crosses over to the genius side. Not for a second.
Some of the stuff is sort of funny, like when Jackie told Chris to try and blend in when they entered a club. To which Chris yelled, “Blend in? I’m two feet taller than everybody in here!” But that is just because I am a racist. Then of course it gets lame when Chris starts singing some Michael Jackson karaoke and the idea of shaving your butt with a samurai sword gets brought up. By the movie, not me! Asian guys have small dicks, black people used to be slaves, etc. If you watch the DVD Extra bit about Jackie Chan being such an international star, you will hear the director actually say, “The fact that eleven-year-old boys would be watching this never left our minds during filming.” The prosecution rests. Rent Commando instead.
DVD Extras
There is a whole pile. They are all pretty boring. The outtakes are good because we see how stupid Tucker is and how badly Chan speaks English. Tucker cannot pronounce gefilte fish. So much so that they cut the entire scene out of the movie! Chan cannot read or write. The best outtake is when Chan and Tucker throw a guy out of a window and he crashes into a taxi cab thirty stories below. Tucker yells, “He won’t be in Rush Hour III.” Exactly. Here is what they didn’t include. My friend’s mom does sound for Hollywood films and apparently before Rush Hour II came out Chris Tucker found Jesus and my friend’s mom had to spend a few weeks editing out all of his cursing…
Ruthless Ratings
- Film, Overall: 2
- DVD Extras: 7 for volume, 3 for content
- Story: 1
- Acting: 3
- Direction: ?
Ruthless Reviews Special Ratings
- Number of cigarettes smoked, if applicable: 10
- Number of beers drank: Not nearly enough
- Number of times movie was paused to do something else: 3 but should have been higher. Friends only seem to call during good movies.
- Number of times you thought you were watching a carrot top movie: 5 Chris Tucker is really lame. And Annoying. And a one trick pony. And he did a song with Michael Jackson. Which makes him a pederast on top of all his other crimes.
- Number of times you wished you were watching China Town: So many times!
- Number of times you thought you were watching a Tarantino movie: 0
- Number of times you found yourself enjoying the movie: 3 times at the beginning. Then the picture began its long, slow descent into the gutter. See the picture above.
- Number of times you wished you had taken that screenwriting class: I don’t even want to watch movies anymore.
- Number of times the oppressive soundtrack made you reach for your knife: 5 times.
- Number of times you imagined the director snickering to them self: This guy didn’t have time to snicker. He just wanted to get the movie done as quickly as possible, script or no script, to make sure the check cleared. By the way, his name is Brett Ratner, and aside from directing both Rush Hours and the upcoming Rush Hour III, he did the Nicholas Cage debacle The Family Man and a Mariah Carrey video…