Tom Hanks plays Victor, who arrives at JFK International Airport in New York from a fictional former Soviet republic just as a coup has happened back home. Because his country no longer exists he’s stuck in a customs limbo – he can’t go back home, but he can’t go into the city either, so the customs guy in charge (Stanley Tucci) tells him he’ll have to wait in the International Something Something Lounge, that food court/mall type part of the airport, until things are straightened out tomorrow or so. It ends up being longer.

But optimistic Victor – who adorably doesn’t understand anything they say and keeps shaking their hands and thanking them – does what he’s told. Next thing you know he’s living in the airport for months, surviving off of saltines and mustard, cleaning himself with the restroom sink. It’s all played for smiles, so it’s not a harrowing tale of survival. The terminal is treated as a fantasy world where he can make friends, get a job, teach himself English, bring people together and fall in love with Catherine Zeta Jones without ever being hassled by security for living there. Or for remodeling the place. (Looks like he was some kind of carpenter or something back home.) And nobody ever tries to, like, get him help straightening out this situation.

So tonally it’s alot different from EMPIRE OF THE SUN, but I definitely noticed some parallels. He’s an innocent man with a complex citizenship, a war traps him in a place where he must learn to survive, a makeshift micro-civilization. He makes allegiances, plays poker, finds a way to get food, stares out at the border, tempted to make a run for it, the authorities waiting to pounce on him if he does. He’s even surrounded by airplanes, right? But isn’t excited about them. No “Cadillac of the sky!”

Remember how Jamie in EMPIRE OF THE SUN carried around a box with his important items in it? For Victor it’s a peanut tin. It has a whole backstory to it that’s kind of sweet but also kind of fill-in-the-blanks what-quirky-thing-could-this-guy-care-about screenwritery.

Hanks is good, and it’s nice to see him trying something closer to a straight comedy at this late date. He hasn’t done too many of those since he got into Oscar collecting. But it’s weird seeing regular-Tom-Hanks with that accent. It’s just such a familiar All-American face, it’s hard to accept him as foreign without some kind of different look. Maybe they shoulda gave him a Borat mustache.

Spielberg also acquits himself well on a technical level. It’s all filmed on what I guess is a huge set, and he manages to keep it visually energetic in that confined space. I don’t know what the real lounge looks like, but I hope there’s a Cinnabon. If this ever happened to me I would use that sugar goo to survive. On the set at least there is a very prominent Borders store. That chain is out of business now but it’s cool that it existed then, because get it, borders?

Anyway it doesn’t feel as claustrophobic as you’d think it would. He makes something more coherent out of it than HOOK. But he shouldn’t have used this script in my opinion. That’s the problem. It’s okay that it’s fantasy, but it should be more plausible fantasy. What happened to the real guy? Must not’ve been much since they made up all this bullshit for the movie version.

(okay, I looked it up, the real guy was an Iranian who lived in a French airport for 17 years after getting his passport stolen. Doesn’t say anything about Catherine Zeta-Jones.)

The weirdest part is the two romances. Okay, so he keeps running into Zeta Jones ’cause she’s a flight attendant, and she’s having problems with men, I’m willing to buy that she sees something in him. Fine. But is a guy in that situation really not gonna explain it to her? And when she finds out he lives in the airport and she calls him a liar why can’t he explain it then? Look lady, my country no longer exists! I don’t know if my family is alive. I’m living off saltines in a god damn food court, sleeping on plastic chairs, bathing in a public restroom sink, ’cause your government can’t get their shit together. And you’re gonna yell at me?

It started to infuriate me. He’s just a foreigner, not a Forrest Gump. Isn’t he? I don’t understand why he can’t behave like a grown adult.

It’s also got that dreaded lazy screenwriting approach of giving each character one quirk that’s supposed to make them interesting. Jones is interested in Napoleon, so every time they meet they gotta compare something to some fact about Napoleon. Diego Luna’s character finds out that Zoe Saldana’s character is a Trekkie (weird coindcidence, huh?) so that little non-detailed-factoid is the key to her heart. No, not wooing her with an elaborate Klingon mating ritual, just telling her he also likes Star Trek. It’s a love connection! She’s apparently never met anybody else interested in that obscure thing that almost nobody has ever heard of, so it’s impressive to her.

Of all the ridiculous things that happen in this I might’ve had the most problem with their romance. He’s her secret admirer. Their interaction is just that he gets Victor to ask her questions. Then he gives her a ring and she says yes! I think I’m supposed to get swept up in the joy of the spontaneous airport wedding, but I was still wondering what her problem was, marrying a complete stranger just ’cause he spied on her from the janitorial department. I’m concerned about both of these people.

Maybe all this would be more acceptable if grounded in reality by a plausible conflict. Tucci is good at playing a prick, but I never believed this particular prick. He’s an asshole from the very beginning, almost proud to explain to Victor that his homeland is at war and his trip is cancelled and he’s a prisoner. And if it really bothers him so much to have Victor there I can’t believe there’s not somebody he can call or fax or bring in that can do something. Even an asshole would try to move the process along just to get him out of his hair. Especially an asshole. He would be calling up everybody he knows chewing them out, wouldn’t he?

The story is credited to Andrew Niccol (THE TRUMAN SHOW) and Sacha Gervasi (director of ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL), the screenplay to Gervasi and Jeff Nathanson. Nathanson also wrote CATCH ME IF YOU CAN and KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL for Spielberg, but I recognize his name from watching the RUSH HOUR movies. He did parts 2 and 3, as well as SPEED 2. I mean look, I don’t know who to blame, but as much as Chris Tucker makes me laugh in the RUSH HOURs I do feel like the scripts got some pretty hackneyed jokes and cliches in them. They might be the work of the type of writer who would make it a major plot point that a character is a “Trekkie,” because they saw on TV that that is a thing that there is, and then they don’t go any deeper than that to make it seem like a real person or like they have met a real person before.

Shit, it’s even worse than the reference humor that’s so prevalent now. At least the reference humor is by people that might know what they’re talking about. This is dumb people reference humor, for people who’s idea of references is, like, New Jersey is stinky, Sean Penn punches photographers, Ronald Reagan says “well” alot. I guess it goes well with the other corny shtick like crashing into windows, going into the women’s restroom on accident and all that. (because he’s foreign)

The most impressive thing about THE TERMINAL is that Spielberg doesn’t have too many duds like this. But I think I liked it better than HOOK.

And I’m looking forward to TERMINAL 2: JUDGMENT DAY.

It’s a classic Hollywood type of story – those old movies about the rise and fall and sometimes re-rise of fictional stage or screen stars – but done in the style of a silent film. Yes, please be aware that this is a silent film, no dialogue except for intertitles. It sounds cute and all but I imagine some people will sit down to it and then realize that on second thought they actually don’t want to see that. To make it easier on us it uses modern cinematic cheats. The picture is clear and not sped up, so unlike most actual silent films you can read their lips and expressions alot of the time, and what they’re mouthing is often modern speech too, there’s not as much of a cultural gap there. Also there’s a full orchestral soundtrack correctly timed to the movie. And one song with vocals.

That’s one of the times it cleverly uses the coming of the sound era as an excuse for little tricks. I’ll only give one more vague example, so as to not ruin too much: there’s a dream sequence where he discovers he can hear sound effects. So the movie’s playing with the fact that it doesn’t really have the limitations it’s mostly sticking to.

Dujardin deserves alot of the credit for the movie working. Even without the power of speech he has the look, charm and mustache of one of the old movie stars like Gene Kelly or somebody. They don’t have leading men like that anymore so he makes the gimmick more authentic than if it was some recognizable Hollywood guy more blatantly of our era. On the other hand there are some of those in the supporting roles though: John Goodman as the studio boss, Malcolm McDowell in like one part, Borat’s sidekick in another part, James Cromwell as George’s driver, and in the role of Peppy’s driver I couldn’t believe it but it was Ed motherfuckin Lauter (DEATH WISH 3, BREAKHEART PASS, WHITE BUFFALO, DEATH HUNT, RAW DEAL, CUJO, REVENGE OF THE NERDS 2, etc.).

Bejo also works well as a spunky rising ingenue of the time. She’s adorable when she dances and smiles. I’m gonna start using ‘ingenue’ in my other reviews also, not just to evoke a certain era. Like, “Erika Eleniak, the young ingenue who jumps out of the cake topless,” that type of thing.

Despite the presence of Mr. Lauter this is one of those movies where it’s only playing on one or two screens in town so you gotta get there early and be prepared to be with one of those crowds of mostly people that see only a handful of movies a year (either foreign, independent or Oscar bait) because their bourgeois friends said it was real good. When the guy next to me kept saying “Hmmm” or “Ahhhh” at each line of text on the commercials I was a little concerned about getting through a silent movie near him, but it turned out to be fine. Also I almost got the spelling of bourgeois correctly in one try. I had an ‘e’ on the end but otherwise got it right. So not only am I real open minded to go see a movie like this without even knowing Ed Lauter was gonna be in it, but I’m also real smart and stuff. I would like a little credit here.

Because of all the acclaim this movie has gotten (97% Fresh Organic and Locally Grown on Rotten Tomatoes, 6 Golden Globe nominations, Best Picture honors from Alliance of Women Film Journalists, Boston Film Critics Association, Detroit Film Critics Society, New York Film Critics Circle, Oklahoma Film Critics Circle, Phoenix Film Critics Society and Vancouver Film Critics Society, Best Director from Alliance of Women Film Journalists, Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, Denver Film Critics Society, Detroit Film Critics Society, New York Film Critics Circle, Oklahoma Film Critics Circle and Phoenix Film Critics Society, heavily favorited for Oscar nominations and for Best Picture – Comedy, Musical or Fake Silent Film at the Senior Choice Awards) you might go in expecting some kind of overwhelming innovation, greatness or soul-shattering depth or insight of some kind. If so you’re not gonna even come remotely close.

The trailer below, not coincidentally created by legendary Oscar hoggers the Weinstein Company, tries to make it seem like it turns real serious and emotional at some point. And maybe the title makes it seem like it’s supposed to be some kind of statement about creating art or the power of art or something like that, a topic which really probly never will need anything ever said about it again, but which probly causes audible boner sproinging at all critic’s screenings. This isn’t even about that, I’m not sure why they chose the title and I don’t think it ever occurs to George Valentin (who’s not a writer or director anyway) to create some kind of statement or emotional journey with his movies. He just likes dancing with pretty girls and being adored. I think even if you try to create a comparison of the end of the silent era to the way digital technology has completely upended the movie, TV, music and publishing industries in recent years and changed everything you’d have trouble coming up with a believable argument for the movie having much depth or relevance.

I’m not saying I want it to have any of those things. It’s like CHARLIE’S ANGELS, it might not even work as well if it had deeper characters. This is a real good, cute movie and I don’t think the filmatists wanted you to think it was anything more than that. They weren’t begging for a best picture. That’s why in addition to all those other accolades it’s a heavy favorite for this year’s Perfectly Good Movie That I Start To Unfairly Resent After It Wins a Bunch of Awards Award. Previous honorees include THE KING’S SPEECH and LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE.

But it perfectly achieves what it sets out to, which is to be a funny and sweet piece of fluff that pays loving tribute to a couple bygone eras of film. It takes tropes from a certain type of cinema and exaggerates them to be more silly but maintains a little bit of sincerity about using them, and lovingly imitates an out-of-fashion style of filmatism, making a few postmodern type jokes playing with the form and our modern sensibilities and what not. In that sense it’s pretty much the same type of movie as BLACK DYNAMITE. The one way it’s better than BLACK DYNAMITE is that it has a couple big tap-dancing scenes, which I enjoyed. On the other hand it doesn’t have any kong fu, so it evens out. What I’m saying is why wasn’t BLACK DYNAMITE nominated for best picture you racist assholes.

In conclusion I liked THE ARTIST it is good. thanks

But if I saw this without knowing anything about it I would definitely guess that it was a John Landis movie. It has that type of deadpan but broad comedy with a huge cast of great character actors and little cameos and all kinds of side characters that keep popping up. It has both Blues Brothers and various Animal Housers in it. Most of all it has huge, expensive, elaborate, excessive mayhem in the service of laughs. Chases, stunts, fights, riots, crashes, chain reactions, jokes.

Look at this damn cast, man: Toshiro Mifune. Christopher Lee as a Nazi. Belushi, Aykroyd, Candy, Joe Flaherty. He doesn’t really get to do anything, but Mickey Rourke is in there, his first role. Eddie Deezen and a ventriloquist dummy. Nancy Allen. Ned Beatty. Slim Pickens as a constipated redneck Christmas tree salesman who refuses to give up the location of Hollywood under torture. Sam fuckin Fuller is in here. Warren fuckin Oates is in here. Treat The Substitute 2 Williams is in here. And Robert Stack. Laverne and Lenny and Squiggy. Dick Miller, John Landis, the guy that directed HITCH, James Caan. Pretty much everybody but R2D2 or Dr. Joyce Brothers is in this movie somewhere.

They all play people on the California coast when America is reeling from the attack in Hawaii and bracing for the possibility of another one. Sure enough, a Japanese sub helmed by Mifune (and with Lee on board) has gotten lost, found California by accident and has decided to attack Hollywood. If they can find it.

But there’s an American lost too: drunken, clearly insane Belushi flies a jet over canyons, to dusty gas stations, between buildings. When he does land he happens to meet up with a general just as crazy as him played by Warren Oates. The story is credited to John Milius – maybe he wanted to top Colonel Kurtz by having two of him.

Today 1941 almost plays like a parody sequel to PEARL HARBOR. It’s about the same length and has a similar structure: young soldiers and the women who love them try to hook up and go to dances and shit, meanwhile a Japanese attack is imminent, racial tensions rise, and everybody checks in for a scrappy attempted defense against an attack involving excellent dogfight special effects. But while PEARL HARBOR has a weirdly goofy tone for a while it does try to get serious, something 1941 never even comes close to.

Both John Wayne and Charlton Heston turned down roles in the movie, and Wayne tried to convince Spielberg that it was offensive to make a joke out of this. He had a point. I mean, DR. STRANGELOVE is an obvious influence, and that’s about as dark of a topic as there is, but it didn’t involve an actual historic incident where lots of people died. That made it easier to laugh at, I think.

On the other hand there’s something really powerful about taking such a serious moment in American history and portraying everybody as a bunch of goofballs. It reminds us that we can and do take ourselves too seriously and that just because shit is real doesn’t mean we’re not being idiots. Or that there’s not something funny about us. It says that even in our nation’s most trying moments we can be doofuses. And it’s okay to laugh about it.

It’s hard to even explain the plot, it’s a complicated series of events, but along the way many women’s garters are exposed, crotches are shoved into faces, a tank drives through a paint factory causing beautiful candy-colored explosions, a Rube Goldberg style chain reaction knocks over everything in a dance hall and wakes up unconscious Treat Williams. There’s a general (Stack) who makes several major military decisions based on the fact that he wants to be left alone to watch DUMBO. Karen Allen has an extreme fetish for sex on airplanes. Deezen’s ventriloquist dummy can always be counted on to be in a crowd shot having a funny reaction to a speech, or to pop his head out of the water gasping for breath while Deezen is apparently drowning. Aykroyd has a great moment where he tells Beatty that the government has decided to set up a big gun on his property. He can’t contain his smile, like he thinks he’s telling him he won the lottery. And in fact Beatty is excited about the news! Pickens has quite a battle with the Japanese when he swallows a Cracker Jack compass so it won’t help them attack Hollywood, then tries to outsmart them while they wait for him to shit it out. “This has not been honorable,” Mifune later says about the whole shitting thing.

One motif I get a kick out of is all the bad dancing in the movie. My favorite is the cook in the diner kitchen prancing around, even cracking eggs to the beat like he thinks he’s in a big musical number. Spielberg shoots it like it might be the real thing, but of course it’s amateur hour. It’s all off and he looks like an idiot.

I have to take a moment to compliment the visual effects on this movie. There’s this whole airplane chase between buildings that looks amazing, and doesn’t have any of those black outlines you usually see on that type of stuff. I assume they did it sort of like the space battles in STAR WARS, but it wasn’t Industrial Light and Magic that did it. It was actually the guys who did effects on TORA TORA TORA and APOCALYPSE NOW. They got an Oscar nomination on this one but honorably lost out to ALIEN.

Also the music by John Williams is very catchy and patriotic-sounding and I’m pretty sure it’s what they were trying to imitate with the POLICE ACADEMY theme. So, influential.

I can see how 1941 could be too long or too broad or too too-soon for somebody, but it makes me laugh. Comedies with this level of technical complexity and production value are pretty rare – it really is an epic – so it’s impressive when you come across one. I like it.

note: I watched the extended version. I can’t compare it to the other one since I haven’t seen it, but it sounds like the way to go since the studio made Spielberg cut it shorter than he wanted to and he later went back and added stuff back in before it started playing on television.

Definitely the highlight is the opening scene in which a family of rich assholes played by Chris Kattan, Rebecca Gayheart, Fran Drescher, the twins from CRUEL INTENTIONS 2 and an uncredited James Caan (!) are having a bitchy Christmas dinner when Santa (Bill Goldberg from WWE and HALF PAST DEAD 2) suddenly busts out of the fireplace Kool Aid Man style and massacres them. It’s kind of like that opening of PUNISHER WAR ZONE, just a big maniac going way overboard with not context about who or why. He combines Christmas-themed gimmicks (tree topper as throwing star, etc.) with wrestler shit (tackling, punching, kicking and bodyslamming people through furniture and structures) and just horrible violence (setting Drescher’s hair on fire, pinning Caan’s hands to the table with the good silverware).

After that great intro it becomes the story of Nicolas and his gun-loving girlfriend (Emilie de Ravin – after Lost, before THE HILLS HAVE EYES) uncovering “the truth about Christmas” and trying to stop Santa’s rampage. It’s the rampage that makes the movie funny, though. He just stomps around murdering everybody, including at a strip club (the bouncer calls him “fat boy”) and a deli (he impales Saul Rubinek on a Menorah, causing his last words to be “There is a Santa.”) You know how Jewish people have to put up with Christmas being shoved in their faces every year? There’s a running joke here about how the Gentiles have no clue that there are even Jews in town. After the murder at the deli one cop wants to talk to some Hasid witnesses, he says “Grab that Amish group outside.”

Goldberg is really funny as Santa. He plays him kind of like Cain played Jacob Goodnight in SEE NO EVIL, except with some later-Freddy type one-liners. He’s like a demonic, dirty-bearded Santa, then he takes off his jacket and has a wrestling-type belt and a sleeveless vest so he can show off his guns. His transportation is a flying sled, they say it’s pulled by a reindeer but it looks like a buffalo to me. As the official secular replacement for Jesus, Santa crashes his sled right through a Nativity scene. He uses exploding gift boxes, he stabs a mugger with a candy cane, he breathes fire, throws ornament smoke bombs. Interesting note: Santa is apparently a germophobe, because he cleans a stripper pole with Windex before tearing it out and using it as a weapon.

The hero (whose name – I really wanna emphasize this – is Nicolas Yuleson) decides he needs to “finally put an end to Christmas,” and he might be able to do it by shooting Santa with a defective nutcracker that he keeps in a back sheathe like a sword. Santa’s gonna put up a fight though. For example he throws a hard cover copy of A Christmas Carol at Nic’s head.

One-time writer/director David Steiman was Brett Ratner’s assistant on THE FAMILY MAN, RUSH HOUR 2 and RED DRAGON. Not his assistant director – his assistant. So Ratner produced the movie and, I don’t know, he must be tight with James Caan or something. So that sort of explains what’s going on here. But I’m not saying he did a bad job. I mean there is some cheesy acting and shit in here (oh shit – the Christmas rap song the kids play in their car!) but it’s a funny movie. And the action is actually really well done, but I’m guessing that might fall at the feet of Andy Cheng, a member of the Jackie Chan stunt team who is credited as second unit director and fight choreographer. He was Jackie’s stunt double in MR. NICE GUY, WHO AM I and SHANGHAI NOON and he did choreography for THE SCORPION KING and THE RUNDOWN. He was fight choreographer and second unit director for Isaac Florentine’s U.S. SEALS II. And he knows how to make an exciting scene about a wrestler dressed as Santa Claus killing everybody in a strip club, it turns out.

I’ve been skipping this one for a few years because I pictured a different type of cheesy than what it actually is. SANTA’S SLAY is alot of fun and I hope you will share it with your family and loved ones this holiday season. Or give it to the poor.

Let’s get THE MUPPETS over with first, since I figure most of the Muppet-positive or Muppet-curious individuals have already seen it and gone over most of what there is to discuss. The main thing about this movie is there’s a little part where Amy Adams and Rashida Jones are in the same room. In that sense this movie is a landmark and hopefully will be very influential.

It’s also about the popular performing puppet collective The Muppets (THE MUPPET MOVIE) and is a love letter to their movies, TVs, etc. thought up by star/writer Jason Segel and successfully marketed as a cool new take on The Muppets for a new generation. At some point though they remembered that “new” is not a concept that has been introduced to this generation yet, so they switched to the ol’ nostalgic-look-back-at-shit-that-already-exists type of approach. Segel and his out-of-his-league girlfriend Amy Adams are planning a romantic Spring Break trip to L.A. for their anniversary, but Segel insists on bringing his brother Walter, an obsessed Muppets fan, to tour the legendary Muppet Studios lot.

The only thing the two brothers have in common is that they both wear wacky out-of-fashion blue suits. In a nice touch of absurdity Walter is played by a puppet, and nobody seems to think that’s weird. But that means he has this whole “where do I belong?” dilemma they always have in these family movies. The being-a-puppet part I can dig, but I don’t really get why he’s such an annoying weiner. He grew up with Segel, they’re supposed to be about the same age, but Segel always lovingly calls him “buddy” like he’s taking his son to his first ball game. Not since MUAY THAI GIANT have I been so confused about whether or not a movie character was supposed to be mentally disabled.

Why can’t he just be a dude who happens to be a puppet? Why does everybody have to handle him with kid gloves? Did they cut out a part where he only has a few days to live and nobody told him yet? And why is his only trait his fandom? No offense to Headgeek, but in my opinion the nerd community has to at some point move beyond this “I have a deep personal connection to this, because my mom bought me a lunch pail of it” mentality. Yeah, all kinds of people liked all kinds of stuff when they were kids. Some kids grew up loving trains, or dinosaurs, or eating boogers, or watching Veggie Tales. Hopefully they got more going on in their souls than just what toy they liked best.

So the beginning of the movie is about worshipping the Muppets, then they track down Kermit, who is living alone in a dusty mansion. Turns out the Muppets don’t speak to each other, and even Miss Piggy is gone (I bet you ten bucks that bitch cheated on him). But due to a contract they signed if they don’t raise a million dollars an evil oil baron (Academy Award winner Chris Cooper) is gonna own the name “The Muppets” and destroy the theater where the Muppet Show was filmed. And I guess it’s too late to apply for historical landmark status. So the humans and the weenie puppet help Kermit reunite the old gang for a fundraiser show.

I’ve been kinda picking at some things I didn’t like about the approach, but it’s a highly enjoyable movie. There are alot of funny jokes and good original songs and a sweet attitude. Some have complained that there are too many humans in it, but these are pretty good humans. Amy Adams sings a song called “Me Party.” I don’t know why that’s allowed, but I approve. Ironically back in 1999 it was a “me party” scene that caused Rupert Murdoch to personally cancel the airing of her TV series Manchester Prep (it was later re-edited into CRUEL INTENTIONS 2):

I just wish THE MUPPETS wasn’t about referencing the previous Muppet works. Yeah, it’s cute to see them singing the rainbow song again, but isn’t the old version available on DVD? I think it is. I could just watch that I bet.

What saves the day is a great, unexpected ending where (SPOILER) nobody saves the day. Our guys don’t end up raising enough money, in fact not even close at all. When the credits start rolling they’ve “lost,” Chris Cooper owns the theater and the name “The Muppets.” But Kermit tells everyone that it doesn’t matter. That’s just a trademark, a likeness, a building. It’s a property, a franchise, a likeness, a trademark – that shit’s for soul-less industry knuckleheads and their lawyers to concern themselves with. Basically, the guy owns all the logos on Walter’s lunchboxes and Pee-Chees and shit, but he doesn’t own the actual guys in the pictures or the heart and soul that they pour into the work, the stuff that made Walter make his parents buy all that stupid crap for him. So the Muppets realize they haven’t lost what’s important, in fact they’ve regained it by having this reunion. They go outside and they’re swarmed on the streets by all the fans who love them even if they can’t legally call themselves Muppets™®©2011 Chris Cooper Industries anymore.

It’s a smart ending that works on multiple levels. It says that it doesn’t matter if Disney owns The Muppets now, or if Taco Bell owns them tomorrow, it doesn’t even matter if you think this “new take” on The Muppets sucks, ’cause the version that you love and that you consider pure is still on record and will always be “the real Muppets” to you, regardless of the official corporate stance on the subject. It’s acknowledging that those movies really meant something profound to Jim Henson and the rest of those hippies and that that meaning is what’s important to people.

Of course, now word has gotten out about an alternate ending where they do raise a million dollars and don’t have to have any of these realizations. True to form, many nerds say that the substance-free ending would’ve been better, and they blame the big corporation for ruining everything. So maybe it is the pajamas and pencil erasers and shit that’s important to some people after all.

Ultimately Sam is a heroic character, ’cause he puts himself at risk to do the right thing. But he’s also kind of an asshole in a way that I think is interesting. His insults to his dead father and living brother are like his police work – a little bit over the line. Apparently his little brother is still traumatized by his cruel bullying when they were growing up, and he shows no remorse when he finds this out. Like Joel Edgerton in WARRIOR he’s accused of being a coward, leaving the family with an abusive father, but he was young and didn’t know what to do, etc.

Amy Smart (Felicity), seeming a little more enthusiastic than in her last wrestler picture, THE HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN, plays their sister who loves them, flaws and all. She’s the executor of the will and she tries to bring them together and make peace. I don’t think that’s her on the cover though, I think that’s some other girl that’s in the movie. She never gets a gun ’cause she sits out the action. But she does convey a sweet, sisterly compassion in her scenes that makes it sort of believable that these lunkheads would humor her and give it a shot. (Although I guess it’s the money that really motivates them.)

The condition of the will is that the boys have to run a business together for 2 years before they get the money. This could’ve very easily turned into a movie about a bakery, a laundromat or a Dairy Queen franchise, but they just end up following a Mexican cartel guy that skipped bail on Leo. This gets them mixed up in the kidnapping of a millionaire (Gregg Henry). So Leo uses his bail bondsman knowledge but is always shown up by Sam’s detective work/guns and Douglas’s special skills that get them through doors. By that I don’t mean picking locks, I mean that women love him and help him out.

Cena’s muscles are distractingly giant, almost the male equivalent of those crazy watermelon-sized fake boobs they used to have in the specialty pornos. But it’s funny ’cause he still has some kind of everyman charisma. I think he’s gotten more comfortable on screen since THE MARINE, but maybe I’ve just gotten used to him. He doesn’t quite know how to deliver all the quick band-and-forth banter in this one, but he’s almost there. It’s not a Dennis Rodman situation. I liked him in this, and the playful insults and competition flying between the three brothers who probly, hopefully at least, really care about each other.

As far as this year’s slate of WWE pictures go, INSIDE OUT is a little more my speed. I like the way it fits into the old ex-con-getting-pulled-into-more-trouble type formula but adds little quirky tweaks and unexpected nuance. But this is an enjoyable movie that some people would probly prefer. Hats off to WWE Studios for trying out different things and at the same time improving the overall quality of their works. I hope they continue to grow and some day have a backlot tour to rival Universal’s. I look forward to THE MARINE 2: THE RIDE and the SEE NO EVIL Halloween maze.

The real trouble starts when Tucker and Dale are fishing and accidentally startle Allison (Katrina Bowden) mid-skinnydip. She falls in the water and hits her head. Dale jumps in and saves her life, but her friends see her being flopped into the canoe, take it the wrong way and run away screaming. I guess they interpreted “We got your friend!” different from how it was intended.

So poor Tucker and Dale are stuck with this unconscious girl, so they take her to their new “vacation home,” which to everybody else looks like a spooky rundown shack complete with creepy newspaper clippings about local deaths (courtesy of the previous owner). Actually from the outside it reminds me of the EVIL DEAD cabin, but on the inside it’s alot trashier. But way less evil.

Allison’s friends are morons, but I’ll give them this: after their initial screaming and running they regroup, man up and come try to “rescue” her. But they continue to misunderstand things. And they have terrible luck so they slip up and keep accidentally impaling themselves and shit like that. Basically, graphic slasher movie death, but all self-applied.

It’s a ridiculous concept, but it continues to be funny the further they take it. In the end they sort of have to switch things up and have an actual bad guy (the ‘Evil’ of the title, I guess), and that’s not quite as interesting in my opinion, but I don’t really know a better way to do it. They still do a surprisingly good job keeping the momentum going. I love that the more things happen the more absurd it gets for them to explain what happened. We know they’re telling the truth but of course nobody should believe them.

These filmatists (writer/director Eli Craig [an actor who was in THE RAGE: CARRIE 2 and played the young version of Tommy Lee Jones in SPACE COWBOYS] and co-writer Morgan Jurgenson [who probly saw the movie SPACE COWBOYS {uncredited}]), seem pretty perceptive about horror movies, I believe that these filmatists know the genre a little better than some of the other people making these postmodern horror comedies. I’d still rather watch the real thing, but if you like this subgenre you should definitely check this one out.

It also has a very light coating of class issue satire because of the assumptions these nitwits (always addressed as “college kids” by Tucker and Dale) make about “hillbillies.” These guys couldn’t be friendlier but they scare the shit out of the college kids. And they’re intimidated themselves because they think they’ll be judged for their lack of education (which should be the least of their concerns, it turns out).

Tudyk has a lifetime nerd following ’cause he was in the show Firefly, and he’s always pretty good. But the secret to the movie’s success is Labine as Dale. Physically he’s sort of Jack Black-ish, a big guy with a big beard, a vacant look in his eyes, but a total sweetheart when he starts talking. And he has a weirdly good chemistry with Bowden as Allison. She’s one of those cartoonishly good looking girls they got in Hollywood, blond and sculpted by the Lord into an almost off-puttingly ideal depiction of American beauty standards. You expect her to play dumb, like her character on 30 Rock. Instead she’s the only one that listens and understands what’s going on. And it’s hilarious to see her trying to sit down both parties and create a dialogue between them. It should be easy to explain that they saved her from drowning and did not try to kill her, but unfortunately one of the college kids has heard about Stockholm Syndrome. In this situation a very small amount of education makes them overeducated.

Allison turns out to be so likable that I almost believed the far-fetched romance between these two opposites. It’s surprisingly sweet for a movie where the gory deaths of a bunch of kids are played for laughs.

I wonder which other horror situations were just misunderstandings? Probly not CHILD’S PLAY.

currently playing in some theaters, on video November 29th

The only nominee I’d seen already was IP MAN 2, but there were two nominees I’d been planning to see: John Woo’s REIGN OF ASSASSINS and Tsui Hark’s DETECTIVE DEE AND THE MYSTERY OF THE PHANTOM FLAME. Then the other two were STOOL PIGEON and GALLANTS.

Wouldn’t it make me a real fuckin innovator if I completely ignored the Oscars but made a huge deal about the Hong Kong Film Awards? That would’ve been pretty good. Too bad I did make a big deal about the Oscars and that the HKFAs happened about 5 months ago. So in my opinion I’m a little late on executing that idea, but back then it seemed like an achievable dream. The writer on kungfucinema said this GALLANTS was the best and wished it would sweep all the top categories, so I tracked it down first. Then I wrote a partial review and forgot about it for months until I finally saw DETECTIVE DEE.

GALLANTS is about a put-upon nerd named Cheung (You-Nam Wong) sent by the real estate office he works for to a small village. Although he is an adult male he gets bullied by a little kid there and has to get rescued by an old cripple (Siu-Lung Leung).

Cheung follows the old man to a tea shop called The Gate of Law. Turns out The Gate of Law used to be a martial arts club, but the master (Teddy Robin Kwan) has been in a coma for 30 years, watched over by his now elderly pupils Dragon (Kuan Tai Chen) and Tiger (the cripple). Soon they clash with another martial arts club that’s organizating a big tournament and also trying to foreclose their property or something. Cheung is supposed to be there for his job but he starts to believe in the grumpy old men and wants to learn kung fu from them, which in my opinion is a good idea considering there are so many little kids, old ladies, small animals etc. out there. It’s a dangerous world for a guy like him.

So it’s a movie that uses old men fighting as both a joke and a heart-string tugger. They wear thick glasses and fanny packs but do real kung fu. It really seems like they got the idea from the old masters in KUNG FU HUSTLE – they even got the same guy that played The Beast playing Tiger. They also have alot of the cartoony shit including a chirpy sound effect when a guy gets hit in the balls. But I read an interview with one of the directors and it sounded like they kind of came to this idea separately. So maybe it’s not a copy but it’s not good when it keeps reminding you of another movie that you kind of wish you were watching instead.

Part of the story is that the master wakes up and he turns out to be a goofy little troll of a man who’s a womanizer and an asshole. He just immediately begins insulting everybody and making ridiculous demands, and to be honest I didn’t even like looking at the little fucker, he’s an obnoxious little monkey man that I quickly hoped would achieve re-comatosis.

(To be fair to Teddy Robin he is apparently a talented dude, he also composed the score and was a pop star under the name Teddy Robin and the Playboys. The Playboys do not appear in GALLANTS.)

These are real martial artists so the fights are legit, but I didn’t find them exciting at all. They just don’t really innovate or even do anything too spectacular other than having some funny looking old guys doing the moves. I really can’t relate to kungfucinema wanting this to win best choreography over Sammo Hung’s great work on IP MAN 2. I looked it up though and Sammo won.

I think people rooted for GALLANTS because it was an underdog, a lower budget movie and not a big historical epic. It takes place in the modern day in a small town, it’s very nostalgic for the old Shaw Brothers movies and stuff, and it’s got that universal appeal of the old guys talking up the old values that are being ignored today. The bad guys are these competitive assholes that teach martial arts for the money, they’re shown as being disconnected from the ancient traditions and values.

But filmatistically I would argue that the movie itself is disconnected from the ancient traditions and values. Like so many Hollywood movies now it’s alot about trying to stylize the shit out of each individual shot and not so much about connecting the shots into a fluent, well-timed piece of communication. The movie has two directors (Clement Sze-Kit Cheng and Chi-kin Kwok) and they’re not like the CRANK dudes but they are the type who have very little restraint when it comes to cramming spazzy visual gimmicks into their movie. Every time a major character is introduced they freeze frame and credit them like in an old Shaw Brothers trailer, so 45 minutes into the movie they’re still crediting the actors. They got a bunch of sped up shit and flashbacks done as scratchy old movies or 3-Dified still photos and flashes of x-rays when people get punched and shit like that. And the nerd guy is very over-the-top, he acts more like a dude in a commercial for a children’s sugar product than a human being. I found the whole thing a little obnoxious.

Luckily these boys do have the sense to calm things down sometimes, slow down, get quiet, and try to get some of the ol’ emotion out of these characters. I think it’s meant sincerely, and it’s also nice to see a Chinese movie that doesn’t seem like some kind of veiled government propaganda. But I still think the values of the story are questionable. The Master was said to be a harsh teacher, like a Pai Mei type I guess, and when he wakes up he definitely is cruel and selfish. And here are these poor guys who have dedicated their lives to taking care of him because they think he’s this great martial artist.

I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be a heartwarming tale of inspiration, but to me it’s a tragic story. At the very end of his life (SPOILER) the master says a couple nice things to his two lackeys, revealing that he was more observant than he let on, and hearing those compliments inspires them in their lives and fighting skills. Okay, that’s cute.

But the movie acts like that makes it all okay, like it’s supposed to legitimize their relationships. I don’t buy it. Too little too late. Yeah, I’m glad he was able to give them some kind words at the end, but they still spent decades wasting their lives for the benefit of a guy that treats them like shit.

And that might be a good way to teach kung fu, but what good does it do them now? They’re old, and they can already fight good enough to protect the nerd guy from the little kid. What else are they gonna need it for?

I don’t mean to entirely dismiss GALLANTS. It’s got some entertainment value and some unique aspects. I just think it’s flash and posturing over substance and if that’s gonna be the case I want some way better flash and posturing.

Arne Treholt is apparently a real historical figure in Norway, a former Norwegian Labour Party politician who was photographed with KGB agents and sentenced to 20 years in the country’s biggest espionage case ever. Thomas Cappelen Malling is the author of a popular humorous book that purported to be a ninja field manual written by that guy. Not sure how that works exactly, but sounds intriguing. Now Cappelen Malling has directed this movie which is sort of an alternate history of Norway that argues that Arne was not a spy, he was set up in a conflict between the left-leaning side of the government that he was part of and the rightwingers, called “Stay Behind,” who do anything they can to help America fight the Russians, including faking terrorist attacks to make people fear commies.

Okay, doesn’t sound funny so far, and that’s part of what’s brilliant about it. There’s not some bad guy with an evil plot so much as a true-to-life ideological disagreement and people that are willing to kill for what they see as the greater good. It’s got so much intrigue going on it could almost be a serious cloak and dagger type thriller, but it just goes a little too far into the silly zone. You see, Treholt, according to the movie, works off of a mysterious island where he trains ninjas and has barbecues. He keeps getting sent out to look for Russian submarines and shit, never finds anything, and is getting fed up. It’s kind of embarrassing to be sent on these wild goose chases, but kind of awesome for a while because he gets to go around underwater with guys on submersible things straight out of GI Joe, with patriotic sounding theme music that reminds me of a Michael Dudikoff movie or something.

These aren’t masked ninjas, though they do wear black sometimes. This is a tribute to the white ninjas of late ’70s, early ’80s pop culture when people in the west were first becoming familiar with the concept. Arne’s most traditional ninja activity is to appear and disappear with a puff from a smoke bomb. This is a good way to show up for meetings and stuff.

What makes this movie work is that it’s completely deadpan. The actors all give naturalistic performances and don’t play shit up like it’s supposed to be funny, even though it is.

I’m surprised that this is a rookie director. I figured it was some genius from music videos or commercials, like a Norwegian Michel Gondry, because it looks so good and has such an attention to subtle detail. The faded colors, the music, the pacing and even some of the sound recording are incredibly authentic to the time period, like an old news broadcast. It has kind of a mockumentary format but not in the modern sense, it’s a mock documentary from back when they would try to do a good job documenting and use tripods and stuff, plus angles from security cameras and nightvision goggles.

But they violate the format for lovingly artificial insert shots and special effects: a model version of the island, planes where you can see the strings, a phony looking shot of hands writing on a notepad. Sometimes the starry sky looks like it could’ve come out of CABIN BOY or something. The effects shots are kind of like old school James Bond with a touch of Wes Anderson.

It’s a way better looking movie than AMERICAN NINJA is what I’m getting at. Not to be unpatriotic but that’s just the truth.

There are some funny lines in this movie. When he’s introducing the different members of his ninja team he says about the first guy “He gets the job done,” and then after he says some stuff about the second guy he says “He also gets the job done” and the third guy, “He gets the job done as well.”

This is a one of a kind movie with a perfectly calibrated tone. It’s just the right amount of ridiculous and plays it with the exact right casualness. This guy looks like some office manager or something but he acts like he’s a bad motherfucker because, well, it turns out he actually is. If you were to get in a scuffle with Treholt you would look at him and laugh and think “Who does this arrogant asshole think he is?” and then he would hand your ass to you and you’d think “Oh, okay, I get it.”

The thing with the smoke bombs is a good example of how just-right the humor is here. The joke could be like BEVERLY HILLS NINJA, that he’s incompetent. He throws down the smoke bomb but then you see him running away or something, it doesn’t work. But the joke is a little less broad – the smoke bombs actually work, he really seems to disappear and appear. But he does it in situations where it’s really silly. I don’t care how clandestine your meeting is supposed to be, a smoke bomb is not usually gonna be appropriate. It’s gonna make people uncomfortable more than anything else. But Arne Treholt doesn’t give a shit about that. He’s Arne Treholt.

If you’re looking for a non-stop laughfest this isn’t it. And obviously if you’re looking for a serious ninja movie, I recommend ones that are not Norwegian. But if you want a very unique exercise in style, tone, and absurdity there’s really nothing like this.

also available on VHS!

chapter 11: "Victoria Secret, Spring catalog, page 22."

released August 3rd, 2001

I know, I know. Every motherfucker on the internet is putting up their essays marking the 10th anniversary of Brett Ratner’s RUSH HOUR 2 today. As fascinating a topic as we all know it is, I believe there could be a small chance that one or two of you are probly getting toward the area where pretty soon there is almost really not gonna be that much more to say about RUSH HOUR 2. And I know that for many of us this is a day when we want to be among friends and loved ones, thinking about how much they mean to us, and how much RUSH HOUR 2 means to them. But please, friends – if you have the time, take a few minutes to read my take. It would mean alot to me, just like this movie means alot to each and every one of us as movie fans, as thinkers, as sons and daughters, as mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, citizens, humans, spiritual beings.

Where were you the day RUSH HOUR 2 came out? If you said “in a theater watching RUSH HOUR 2″ then we got the same answer. I’m not joking around anymore, that was all fine and dandy for the opening paragraph part, but after you click through to read the rest of the review there’s no fucking around anymore, now we’re into some serious business. So this is gonna make you lose respect for me if you have any, but RUSH HOUR 2 was honestly one of the movies I was most excited about in the summer of 2001. For real.

Although it’s kinda considered taboo among white people, it is a stone cold fact that I think Chris Tucker is hilarious. I know I’m definitely in the small club of people who like him in THE FIFTH ELEMENT, but it’s MONEY TALKS and of course FRIDAY that made me love him. I think his best jokes are sold with a natural acting talent, portraying a character that’s full of shit and trying to seriously convince you. So I also love him in his few roles that are more dramatic, one being DEAD PRESIDENTS and the other being his standout scene in the already all-time-great movie JACKIE BROWN.

I always think of the first RUSH HOUR as being a mediocre movie – Jackie Chan doing some stuff, but not as good as in his Hong Kong movies; Chris Tucker being funny, but not as funny as in an R-rated movie. And some corny “we’re from different ethnic groups so we don’t understand each other” jokes. But then the fucking thing comes on TV and I always find myself laughing at the shit Tucker says. “Yo, MC Hammer’s dad, put the gun down.” “I love when a G-14 be comin around.” Only Chris Tucker would do a cop movie where after the climactic death of the villain he says, “Whoooo! You know he dead.” Christian Bale would not be able to say that line. It’s the opposite of the climax of THE FIFTH ELEMENT, when Tucker storms off saying, “Every 5 minutes there’s somethin’, a bomb or somethin’. I’m leavin’.”

RUSH HOUR was a big surprise hit in 1998, which somehow turned Tucker into a guy that’s supposed to get $20 million per movie. Then he did something unusual: he didn’t cash in. He left a few projects over creative differences (Martin Lawrence still owes him a thank-you card for giving up BLACK KNIGHT), developed a few personal ones that never got off the ground, flew around the world on humanitarian missions, and was not on screen again until RUSH HOUR 2. So I was highly anticipating it. I think I enjoyed it at the time but, again, not the greatest.

Watching it again ten years later I’m surprised to find that the Jackie Chan element of this one is stronger than the Chris Tucker. Of course it’s no DRUNKEN MASTER 2, but I think they did put more work into the action than in the first one. But the comedy doesn’t hold up as well.

The best thing in the movie is Zhang Ziyi, cute little Jen from CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. Here she’s cold-hearted bomber and asskicker Hu Li. Like CROUCHING TIGER co-star Michelle Yeoh her background is as a dancer, not as a martial artist, but she’s great with the choreography and they take advantage of her ballet flexibility, giving her impossible high kicks. Because she’s a petite little girl Carter keeps talking shit and threatening her, but every time he does that she gives him another wallop. She even gets the drop on Chan when a long, impressive indoor chase leads him into the dead end of her foot to his face.

The plot this time is partly a reverse of part 1. Carter (Tucker) is on vacation in Hong Kong visiting Lee (Chan) when these bombings start and they get wrapped up in the investigation. It actually ties in with part 1’s throwaway backstory about Lee’s dad, the cop killed in the line of duty. Now we know his partner Ricky Tan (John Lone) might’ve been involved in dad’s death as well as these bombings. Then there’s a hot secret service agent (Roselyn Sanchez) and some other stuff. I forget. Like in THE PROTECTOR, Jackie brings his buddy to a massage parlor or bathhouse or brothel type place where it turns into a brawl. They always get pampered by a bunch of women and then get their ass kicked.

Obviously Carter’s gonna have some cultural misunderstandings and what not. But some of it’s pretty funny. Wandering Hong Kong alone trying to find the massage parlor where he left his wallet he ends up wearing an outfit worthy of Steven Seagal and accidentally buying a live chicken. So he just carries it around with him for a while. I forget if they said what happened to the chicken. Maybe there should’ve been a spinoff about the chicken having to team up with a pitbull or something, and they bicker and then work together and learn from each other. “Never touch a pitbull’s water dish,” that kinda stuff.

There’s a big fight in a casino (The Red Dragon Casino, because the Money Talks Casino or the Nicolas Cage in Family Man Casino would’ve sounded weird) and one in a bath house, and one on a yacht, and they pretend like Carter kind of knows kung fu now, or knows how to fake it a little. There’s lots of Jackie Chan moves: money throwing, chair rolling, cabinet slamming, pay window jumping, tie grabbing, styrofoam box on feet water walking, bamboo climbing, pole dangling. It feels more like Jackie is free to do his thing than in the first one.

Some of Tucker’s comedy though seems a little more forced this time. He always works in Michael Jackson impressions in his movies, this time he does an entire karaoke performance of “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” and then later busts some Michael moves on top of a blackjack table to cause a distraction. There’s some really corny scripted jokes like a “who’s on first” type deal involving the word “you” and the name “Yoo.” Carter and Lee’s re-introduction is a terrible scene where they reference jokes from the first one but with the characters reversed. I can just picture the meeting where they first discussed that this is why it’s good to do a sequel, because this way we can change it so Jackie doesn’t want Chris to touch his radio. The tables have turned, the shoes have been switched to the other feet, the snake’s tail has bitten its head. People are gonna love this. It’s familiar, it’s new, it’s an old favorite, it’s a new twist, it’s what part 2 was born to do.

But when Tucker seems like he’s just making up random shit off the top of his head that’s when he’s funny. Like when he needs to cause a big scene in the casino and he mock-righteously announces to the crowd, “This 7 I’m about to roll is for the 27 years Mandela spent in that prison and couldn’t get no justice and took all that crap.”

Of course Chan’s jokes aren’t gonna be verbal, his main thing is mugging. But I got a good laugh during the scene where he thinks Carter is dead and sits in his car solemnly nodding along to that Biggie tribute “Missing You.”

Since the first one was so successful this one gets more of that “this is a big movie” feel where they force in some sort of distracting guest appearances. At one point Don Cheadle shows up as a Chinese-speaking Shaolin practicioner from Carter’s hood. That part’s okay but I’m not a fan of Jeremy Piven’s cameo as a gay stereotype clothes salesman that makes Carter mad by touching him too much.

Alot of people misuse the word “hack” to mean “terrible director,” and accuse Ratner of being that. I think he’s actually a perfect example of the correct definition of “hack”: a for-hire director who doesn’t seem to have a strong artistic vision of his own. He worked in music videos and commercials and still does, but got his start on MONEY TALKS when Tucker had the original director fired for not letting him improvise (honestly a good move and career-saver for Tucker). Later Ratner was a guy who could come in at the last minute and direct X-MEN 3 using Matthew Vaughn’s preparation and whatever the studio told him. A professional more than an artist. He’s like a hitman in a movie who says he follows some code, but then it never gets to the part where he feels bad and breaks the code to save a girl or something.

So Ratner’s a hack, but at the same time I think he deserves a tiny bit more credit than he generally gets. He does provide a small amount of artificial flavoring. For example he’s a life long fan of ENTER THE DRAGON so he had all his early movies (including this one) scored in a retro style by Lalo Schifrin. I figure if people still give Bryan Singer props just for re-using the old Superman theme and font they oughta give Ratner some credit for the great opening scene of RUSH HOUR 2. It’s a nicely put together little dialogue-free scene establishing Hong Kong and showing a disguised Zang Ziyi delivering a package to the American Consulate, then eerily telling some guy “Someone should call the police” as the building explodes behind her. With Schifrin’s music it seems like some lost ’70s US-Hong-Kong co-production classic.

I even think there are some themes in Ratner’s work, at least the ones with Tucker. While the music is retro, he’s attempting to update the racial makeup of the 48 HOURS or LETHAL WEAPON type of movie. But the RUSH HOUR series has a weird combination of diversity and racism. On one hand it’s a clever tweak of the buddy-cop-movie formula. Usually you got Mel Gibson/Nick Nolte and a black guy, or Dolph Lundgren/Jay Leno and an Asian guy. The white guy is either supposed to be the cool guy or the audience surrogate. They’re supposed to be movies about how white people can get along with other races, and the white character is supposed to be either who the white audience can relate to or who they can wish they were as cool as.

In MONEY TALKS, Ratner and Tucker messed with that formula by portraying the white guy as a completely hatable douche (Charlie Sheen), but the black guy was still a motor-mouthed petty criminal, basically an update of Eddie Murphy in 48 HOURS. I think it’s hilarious but it’s not worthy of any NAACP awards. For RUSH HOUR though they took the white guy out of the formula completely. In most American cop movies these guys would be the sidekicks. They’re also teamed with strong Latina cops (Elizabeth Pena in the first one, Roselyn Sanchez in this one) and pretty much all the white characters are bad guys or uptight authority figures who don’t get it.

So that’s a nice change of pace, but unlike the even more diverse FAST AND FURIOUS series these movies constantly call attention to racial and ethnic differences and stereotypes. It’s the main ingredient of the comedy, with obvious jokes about the two characters misunderstanding or learning about each other’s cultures. Tucker of course is a comedian who’s constantly riffing, so he falls back on alot of “black people are like this” and “I only know Asian people from kung fu movies” humor. Usually the character is supposed to be an ignorant ass, that’s the joke. But you still get sick of him thinking Chinese people eat sushi or run from Godzilla or referring to sex as “hide the rainbow roll” or that kind of shit. That stuff and the Piven scene aren’t as much offensive as they’re just lazy comedy, just like the dumb references to jokes from the first one that weren’t even the funny parts of the first movie anyway.

Ten years later I guess my feelings about RUSH HOUR 2 haven’t changed that much. It’s kind of embarrassing that it’s a huge record breaking hit, but also it’s not as bad as people claim it is. Don’t get mad at me for not saying IT SUCKS or IT RULES. These fence-sitting reviews are the hardest to write. But I’m being honest:

1) it’s not very good

2) I somewhat enjoy it.

I guess if anything this decade has given me more perspective on how bad Jackie’s American movies could be. Back then you could still complain that it wasn’t a pure Jackie Chan movie, now you can be relieved that it’s not THE TUXEDO or THE SPY NEXT DOOR. Or, sadly, RUSH HOUR 3. It seems pretty dignified in comparison.

* * *

datedness: all the references to Michael Jackson and the Nate Dogg song on the soundtrack take on different meaning since they both died in the last few years. But also the sort of worshipful view of MJ fits more with the prevailing attitude of 2011 than it did 2001, when in American pop culture Michael was usually only used as a punchline.

would they make a movie like this today? Yeah I guess so. Jackie might not be able to do as much at his age, and Tucker’s head would look slightly wider. Judging by RUSH HOUR 3 it wouldn’t be as good. But the RUSH HOURs don’t really follow movie trends of their time periods, they don’t got MORTAL KOMBAT music playing during the fight scenes or us bullet time anything, so they’re not necessarily stuck in 1998 and 2001. They could come out earlier or later.

legacy: RUSH HOUR 2 was a huge hit (at the time the highest grossing comedy ever), so they made a part 3, but it took 6 years to get made. That’s still the only movie Tucker has done in the ten years since part 2.

Some time around this movie Tucker and Ratner became actual friends with Michael Jackson. Tucker appeared in one of Jackson’s last videos, “You Rock My World,” and also testified on his behalf at his trial (Tucker had befriended the family that accused Jackson before he had, and said he warned MJ that they were using him for his money).

Chan did some more American vehicles, including THE TUXEDO and SHANGHAI KNIGHTS, but luckily he’s still made plenty of movies in his native Hong Kong.

Ratner started doing alot of producing after this (including the TV show Prison Break) but has also directed 4 features since then. One is a gratuitous remake and two are part-3s.

Writer Jeff Nathanson hooked up with Spielberg, writing CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, THE TERMINAL and a draft of KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL.

I have not noticed RUSH HOUR 2 being particularly influential.

Important information: RUSH HOUR 2 has the same stunt coordinator (Conrad E. Palmisano) as MARKED FOR DEATH, OUT FOR JUSTICE and UNDER SIEGE.

Unfortunate information: according to Wikipedia, RUSH HOUR 2 is “second highest grossing martial arts film of all time, after KUNG FU PANDA.”