Movie Review: Rush Hour 2
With the unprecedented success of September 1998’s Rush Hour, the sequel got a summer release date upgrade in 2001. Despite a major theatre chain not carrying the movie on most of its screens (you can bet the opening weekend percentage had something to do with it), the film went on to have the highest August weekend ever (before The Bourne Ultimatum this year) with $67 million.
Rush Hour 2 does that Crocodile Dundee thing where the fish out of water from the first film goes back to his native land with the home field guy becoming the fish out of water. Inspector Lee (Jackie Chan) is going to show the sights of Hong Kong to Detective Carter (Chris Tucker), but Lee finds himself on a case, dragging Carter into it, sniffing out a counterfeiting ring led by Ricky Tan (John Lone) and helped out by hottie Hu Li (the then Zhang Ziyi).
So the detectives get into a world of trouble with the Triads and a mysterious could-be-may-not-be government agent Isabella Molina (Roselyn Sanchez). And we have more of the same wise-cracking, martial arts mayhem that proved to be a good formula for the first film. I just didn’t like this one all that much. The stupidity of the first film could be ignored, but not in this one. This is where you have a chance to start making things a bit more intriguing, but it’s one of those plots where everyone could end up being a bad guy or a good guy before it’s over with, and any explanation will do. I hate it when movies do that.
So, I wasn’t too thrilled with it but I know it does it’s job as a simple time-waster and the mass audience eats it up. And in 2001, it was the 5th highest grossing film of the year with over $226 million in total domestic box office.
Follows: Rush Hour
Next: Rush Hour 3
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Comment from Jonathan
Time: August 9, 2007, 2:57 pm
Easily one of the twenty or so worst films I’ve ever seen; might even make it into the top ten on some days. The “Crocodile Dundee” comparison is brilliant; I had never thought of these movies that way. We just need to insert Jackie Chan saying “This is a knife” in the first film and I think you’re dead on.