Synopsis:
Lee's (Jackie Chan) latest assignment is to escort and to protect Chinese Ambassador Han as he delivers a speech at the World Criminal Court Summit in Los Angeles. While delivering his paper, Han is shot and nearly killed. Meanwhile, former LAPD Detective James Carter (Chris Tucker), who has been demoted to a traffic cop, just happens to be listening to the radio when the incident occurs. He rushes to help, but instead interferes with Lee's pursuit of the culprit. To get his status back, Carter teams up with Lee to help track down the assassins. With the trail leading to Paris, France, both will find themselves in unfamiliar territory, having to contend with the French police, the triads, and foreign culture.

Reviews:
This second sequel has Inspector Lee (Jackie Chan) playing bodyguard to Chinese Ambassador Han (Tzi Ma) at a World Criminal Court conference in L.A. when the envoy is shot while presenting his speech. The culprit is Kenji (Hiroyuki Sanada), a member of an international triad - and someone who had been rather close to Lee.

Carter takes it upon himself to help Lee track down the gang, embodied in an elusive clue called Shy Shen. The mission takes them to Paris where the hapless duo muck around in the city's sewers, cabaret nightspots and even the top of the Eiffel Tower, ostensibly to provide the customary Jackie Chan stunts.

Still, except for a stunt sequence involving a gang of motor-bikers and a French taxi, most of the action scenes fall flat. I find that Jackie Chan's moves ain't that agile and swift as before as he is a little off the age as compared to before. Yes, we see Lee and Kenji facing off each other in a sword fight but we know that neither of them is going to kill each other. We see veteran thespian Max von Sydow as a French Foreign Minister and we can safely predict how he would turn out to be in the plot mechanics. Even director Roman Polanski, who has a cameo as a sadistic French cop, fails to provide the movie the extra star-power that it desperately needs.

Arguably, Ratner and his screenwriters seem to have hurt the image of the French and they make up for this with a subplot about George (Yves Attal), the heroic Parisian cabbie who helps Lee and Carter escape their enemies. The subplot may appear rather contrived, as is everything in the movie, but it should help give the movie a boost at the French box-office.

I find that though the humour level is there, the action scenes aren't that many and the duration of this movie is too short. All the sequels this year were quite a disappointment.

Ratings:
Storyline: 6/10
Action: 7/10
Humour: 8/10
Overall: 3.5/5 stars

Labels: movie, reviews, synopsis

[x] Shireen signing out at
5:10 PM