RushHour Tagged Articles at Cinematical

While the three Rush Hour films were very popular at the box office, they ultimately lacked a little something we'll call "good." The first wasn't bad, but the next two felt like someone made a list of stereotypical black and Asian jokes, threw in a few fancy martial arts moves, borrowed a line or two from a previous installment , then topped it with a Polanski and sent it out to the masses. Well, the good news here is that it doesn't look like we'll be getting a Rush Hour 4 anytime soon. However, according to MTV Movies Blog, Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker do want to reunite once again on the big screen ... though they're not saying what that potential film will be about. Let's take a guess: One black guy and one Asian guy meet up .... stuff happens .... hilarity ensues??? (Why am I so angry and bitter on Mondays?)

Chan told MTV, "We sat down and decided we want to do another movie. Not a Rush Hour -- something new ... I said yes, and after I shook [Tucker's] hand, I said: 'Look, we need a middleman. I don't want to shake hands, then I go back to Hong Kong and you stay here, I get busy and you get busy.' You have to have somebody in the middle to follow up, otherwise it will never happen." Chan went on to add, "We've just agreed to do it ... Now we're looking for the writer."

So what do you think about all this? Could Chan and Tucker team up on a movie that doesn't have the words 'Rush Hour' in the title ... and still succeed? What would this film be about? What would you want it to be about?

Aging martial artist Jackie Chan apparently keeps a blog, and has written the following on it, according to the AP: he's fully aware that Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2 and Rush Hour 3 all sucked. He knew they were crap when he made them, and he knows it now. (I think Richard Corliss of Time Magazine is now the last remaining person on Earth who doesn't know it -- he gave Rush Hour 3 a glowing review.) Of the first Rush Hour, Chan says "When we finished filming, I felt very disappointed because it was a movie I didn't appreciate and I did not like the action scenes involved. I felt the style of action was too Americanized and I didn't understand the American humor." Okay ... thanks for sharing. So why did he return for more of the same, after such a negative experience? Because, he says, he was offered an "irresistible" sum of money. He doesn't even bother giving a reason for the third one, apparently.

The interesting thing about all of this is that Chan seems to equate the bad humor of the Rush Hour movies with American taste, in general, as if we're a nation of people who think Rush Hour is the bar by which good taste is measured. He uses the word 'American' over and over again, when pinpointing the flaws of his various projects. Of his upcoming movie, The Forbidden Kingdom, with Jet Li, he tells us -- at least it's in advance, this time -- that the movie is no good. Why? It's "a movie made for Americans." I can't wait for the press junket for that one ...

Still wondering why X-Men: The Last Stand sucked so much? It could be because Brett Ratner can't direct action scenes. You may already have come to that conclusion on your own, but now it has been confirmed by Jackie Chan, who is currently working with Ratner on Rush Hour 3. He was quoted by The Canadian Press as saying, "Even though Brett doesn't know much about directing action, he does notice details that help us improve the scene. I appreciate his attentiveness when we shoot action scenes and his feedback."

Of course, Chan's statement could be lost in translation, and I don't mean that the quote was translated from the Chinese. What the martial arts-trained actor probably meant is that Ratner doesn't know about choreographing action, especially the kind of playful fight sequences Chan is famous for. I figure most of the directors Chan has worked with have had difficulty directing Chan in these types of scenes and probably just let him do his thing, just as most directors couldn't direct Chaplin, Keaton or many of the other great silent comedians or great martial arts action stars -- at least, not when their main talents were being filmed.

I don't mean to defend Ratner, who I think is in fact awful at directing action scenes, as well as all other types of scenes for that matter. But Chan could not have meant to put down the talents of a filmmaker he's working with for a third time. Still, in the same article Chan is quoted as praising the directing talents of Ang Lee and Zhang Yimou, two directors he didn't expect would be so great at shooting action scenes but who, in his opinion, are. Since Chan has never worked with either of these filmmakers and since both employed choreographers for their fight scenes, it could be that Chan did literally mean what he said.

Jeff Nathanson's draft of the Indiana Jones 4 script has been approved by both Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.  All that Paramount is waiting on now is for star Harrison Ford to give his approval. So while the project is on the fast track, scheduling Indiana Jones 4 for a 2006 start will be tricky for Spielberg. The director is next set to shoot his untitled drama about the aftermath of the 1972 Munich Olympics in Europe for Universal and DreamWorks. In January he is scheduled to helm a film about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War starring Liam Neeson. So unless changes to his schedule are made, expect a late 2006 start date. Jeff Nathanson also wrote The Terminal, Catch Me If You Can, Speed 2: Cruise Control, and the second and upcoming third additions to the Rush Hour series.