xhari_nairx

Rush Hour 2 had some things going for it.... Jackie Chan, as old as he's getting, still has some nifty moves.... this film had the best stunt work of Chan's three recent Hollywood productions but it still pales in comparison to his work in Hong Kong... but that's just the way it is. It's also his best English language performance.... his words are still difficult to understand but he is more relaxed delivering them. The two female leads, Zhang Ziyi and Roselyn Sanchez, are easy to look at and good in their roles, even if thy don't have much to do besides look good (Ziyi at least had lots of villianess death stares). And a word out to Lalo Schifrin's music, which was welcome in both Rush Hour films. But all that was battling Chris Tucker's raging mouth. I thought he was okay in the first one, but here his performance is as obnoxious as his performance in The Fifth Element. All he does is mouth off and act stupid. Especially in the Hong Kong scenes... he's so off the wall stupid and offensive that it was silly he didn't get a good clobbering... I'm almost disappointed he didn't get clobbered more through out the film. I found his Hong Kong scenes more difficult to bear than the Vegas scene Ebert brings up in his review. In that scene at least, his behavior had a purpose. Tucker nearly killed the film for me... obviously fans of Tucker won't find him as grating as I did... your enjoyment of this film basically depends on your ability to bear Chris Tucker.

I can't claim to have seen every single ghost story ever captured on film, though I believe I've seen all the majors... THE UNINVITED, THE HAUNTING, THE SHINING, etc. While all of those are very good films, none of them can compare to the near perfection of THE INNOCENTS. It really infuriates me that the film isn't more routinely recognized as one of the greatest horror films of all time. THE HAUNTING almost invariably appears on such lists, yet THE INNOCENTS is more sophisticated and frightening... and it was released two years before. I'd even wager that Robert Wise was influenced by this film. People always note that THE HAUNTING was smart enough not to show any ghosts and that the imagination makes the ghosts much scarier. While that is certainly valid, THE INNOCENTS proved that what you show can be equally frightening... and that is more impressive. What really strikes me about the film is how innovative it is, quite possibly as innovative as PSYCHO and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. I can't think of any earlier films which used electronic distortion of sound to this affect... and that sort of thing now text book horror or thriller genre sound design. Yet, maybe only David Lynch (whose always done his own sound design) and composer Toru Takemitsu have been able to do it as well to this day. The film has not dated in the slightest... I can only imagine that it was too scary for audiences of the early sixties and that is the reason it isn't more widely hailed as a classic by critics today.