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By Cole Smithey
‘Rush Hour 3’
Movie Trailer
In their third and ostensibly
last outing together, Jackie Chan
and Chris Tucker go through the
motions of energizing the “Rush
Hour” franchise, albeit with less
physical action and much less
apparent joy. Director Brett Ratner
also returns following the first
two “Rush Hour” installments that
began in 1998 when Chan still
possessed the youthful vigor to
execute eye-popping stunts and
Tucker was enough of a soprano-voiced
anomaly to induce involuntary
laughs whenever he opened his
mouth.
It’s been six years since “Rush
Hour 2,” and police officer Carter
(Tucker) has been demoted to traffic
cop, a job he treats with such
dance-move-irreverence that car
flow around his designated intersection
doesn’t stand a chance. Agent
Lee (Chan) is busy acting as bodyguard
to Chinese Ambassador Han (Tzi
Ma) who suffers an assassination
attempt while giving a speech
before the World Criminal Court
in Los Angeles where he was about
to name the leader of an international
crime ring. A foot chase across
a busy highway puts Lee in striking
range of the hit man, but he’s
unable to shoot when he discovers
that it is his “brother” Kenji
(Hiroyuki Sanada), now aligned
with the Triad crime gang working
in Paris, where Lee and Carter
will soon follow.
The duo receive a rubber-gloved
welcome to the Gallic country
by its chief police inspector
(well played in an uncredited
cameo by Roman Polanski), and
sustain a stream of insults toward
America from their opinionated
taxi driver George (Yvan Attal).
But George changes his editorial
tune after Lee appoints him “super
spy” in order to escape a crew
of Triad motorcyclists that knock
the doors off the taxi in their
hot pursuit. It’s the movie’s
first major chase scene and although
Ratner ramps up the stunts, a
cyclist flies through the back
of a truck and out of its front
window, he doesn’t push the action
to the degree that modern audiences
have come to expect from watching
films like “The Transporter.”
The series’ formula of carefully
layered slapstick gags, mixed
with Chan’s inimitable martial
arts prowess, hits a high point
during a snappy parlor room battle
between Lee and gambling-club
owner Jasmine (Youki Kudoh), a
dragon lady with a spike-filled
fan that she throws with blinding
accuracy. Carter enthusiastically
listens outside the door, thinking
that the shouts and grunts emanating
from inside are the effect of
Lee’s love making efforts. The
scene is the closest the movie
comes to achieving a “Pink Panther”
brand of humor that the “Rush
Hour” films identify with. But
even here, the screenwriter and
director squander an opportunity
to infuse the sequence with personality.
If Lee and Jasmine had some ongoing
scintillating dialogue, we could
have gotten a more satisfying
sense of their characters during
their battle-as-sex contest.
As with the first two movies,
the third act climax is where
the most sustained action is and
regardless of the flagging chemistry
between Chan and Tucker, it’s
a payoff that works better than
it has a right to. The Jules Verne
restaurant atop the Eiffel Tower
is the setting for a grand nighttime
showdown that takes the action
out onto the tower’s exposed support
beams. The extended acrobatic
battle gains visual momentum for
the ingenious photography and
CGI that believably place our
heroes high above Paris on its
most iconic structure.
There’s no denying that the
producers waited too many years
before making the final installment.
It is too late in Chan’s remarkable
career for the martial arts master
to perform the kind of stunts
that his fans expect. As a gifted
physical comedian, there is hope
that the actor will find a new
cinematic path to fulfill his
talents. Tucker’s limited comedic
range seems to have a more difficult
transition ahead because he has
remained too reliant on the “Rush
Hour” franchise for his bread
and butter. “Rush Hour 3” represents
a final hour that has already
passed. CV
‘The Bourne Ultimatum’
Movie Trailer
Even audiences new to the Jason
Bourne (Matt Damon) spy thriller
franchise will respond with compulsory
excitement at the elaborately
orchestrated chain of exhilarating
chase sequences that lead up to
a philosophically satisfying whopper
of a climax. Paul Greengrass continues
his directing duties after “The
Bourne Supremacy” and gets stellar
results from returning cameraman
Oliver Wood and editor Christopher
Rouse. After losing his girlfriend
Marie to an assassin in the last
movie, former CIA hit man Bourne
is hotter than ever to uncover
his true identity, mysteriously
erased from his brain. International
locations like Moscow, Paris and
London change like a roulette
wheel ball as Bourne perpetually
turns the tables on teams of kill
squads ordered to snuff him out
by CIA bigwig Noah Vosen (David
Strathairn). Canny dialogue, solid
performances and virtuoso editing
and scoring make “The Bourne Ultimatum”
a thrill ride you won’t soon forget.
Jason Bourne is a spy who knows
too much about systematic strategy,
but almost nothing about his motivation
for the precision killings that
he commits on a daily basis in
order to survive. The historical
dilemma regarding his memory is
a burning question that has fueled
three films worth of fast-twitch
brutality and mind-boggling car
chases. Bourne operates purely
on trained killer instinct and
adrenaline. He is an archetype
for the modern cinematic spy because
he chases the action that chases
him, albeit with humorless venom
liberated by his utterly autonomous
existence.
A “Guardian” newspaper article-linking
Bourne to a CIA black-ops group
called “Blackbriar” draws him
to London to question the journalist
that wrote the piece. The encounter
that follows is a crash course
in ducking CCTV surveillance cameras
positioned around Waterloo station
as viewed by Noah Vosen’s CIA
headquarters, committed to stopping
Bourne in his tracks.
CIA specialist Pamela Landy
(Joan Allen) returns to assist
Vosen in trapping his quarry,
but becomes suspect of the chief’s
unethical treatment of the case.
The interior female-inflected
shift to Bourne’s side coincides
with the return of suave CIA op
Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) just
after Bourne has efficiently finished
off a goon squad inside CIA offices
in Madrid.
Muted romantic sparks fly between
Parsons and Bourne, and it’s their
delicate acknowledgement and necessary
disavowal of the attraction that
underlies a super-action motorcycle
and foot chase sequence that leads
up to one of the most impressive
hand-to-hand combat displays ever
filmed. After surviving a car-bomb
explosion and escaping from hordes
of Spanish police, Bourne goes
toe to toe with an agent sent
by Vosen to kill he and Parsons.
Within the tight confines of an
otherwise unoccupied apartment,
Bourne and his equally skilled
opponent go at it with everything
they’ve got. The scene is unaccompanied
by music and only sound from the
men’s mortally threatening grunts
and blows punctuate the silence.
Although the scene is filled with
quick-cut editing, this is far
from the music video-styled compositions
that have wrecked innumerable
features. Instead, we get an intense
representation of a life-or-death
struggle where each man is fully
invested in using everything at
his disposal to kill the other.
The episode promises to do for
fight scenes what the car chase
in “Bullitt” did for auto pursuits
in every movie that followed.
The second act ends once Bourne
advises Parsons that “it gets
easier” on a train platform, after
narrowly escaping a series of
attacks. The screenwriters do
something magical in combining
a “Casablanca” brand of romanticism
with a determinedly 21st century
tone of unrelenting pulsing action.
But, they go one further by delivering
a thematically polished ending
that embraces political and social
commentary that cuts so close
to the bone of America’s manifold
militarized social crises that
audience members of certain military
or political bents may be inclined
to figuratively shit their pants.
The Jason Bournes of the world
are out there, and they will eventually
come home to roost. CV
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