1998 called...
Note: The Rush Hour TV show debuts Thursday, March 31 at 10/9c on CBS. Minimal spoilers follow...
It's been nearly a decade since the last Rush Hour movie came out, and even then it was a tired concept. The farcical buddy cop trilogy starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker had its charms in the early going, but it quickly ran out of steam about halfway through the second film. It's a little puzzling then why CBS would want to reboot the franchise as a TV series, other than sheer name recognition I guess. Having now seen the pilot, I can say it's actually not as bad as I thought it would be, but the same old premise doesn't feel as fresh and funny as it did in 1998.
Developed by Cougar Town's Bill Lawrence and Blake McCormick, the new series follows straight-laced Detective Lee (Bangkok Revenge's Jon Foo), who travels from Hong Kong to Los Angeles to track down a Chinese crime syndicate that he believes murdered his sister (Jessika Van). Once in LA, he's partnered with Detective Carter (21 Jump Street's Justin Hires), a motormouthed cop who, you guessed it, doesn't play by the rules -- much to the disdain of his boss, played by Wendie Malick.
The new show takes place in the present day, but you wouldn't know it from the stock racial jokes, which are almost exclusively pointed at Lee being a fish out of water in Big City, America. To be fair, that was 90-percent of the original movie's humor too, but none of the references have been updated for this, and they come off as trite as a result. That's a shame, since the modern differences between Chinese and American cultures (not to mention police forces) seem like fertile ground for new, insightful comedy. Instead, we get the usual stuff: Carter making fun of Lee's Eastern stoicism, while Lee berates Carter for his unlawful behavior. Honestly, the jabs are pretty harmless -- in today's PC-minded society, they could have been much worse -- but none of them are very original.
As for the two leads, they're fine. Hires seems to be channeling more Chris Rock than Chris Tucker as Carter, but he's certainly got the energy down. Meanwhile, Foo has all the aloofness and fighting grace of Jackie Chan but almost none of the slapstick appeal. In fact, most of the action here is humorless and all too brief to be enjoyed.
For example, in the pilot, Lee gets into fisticuffs with some bad guys around a pool table, just like in the first movie. But instead of playing with that environment and/or adding some physical comedy to the mix, Lee systematically takes each guy down in a matter of seconds -- no struggle, no slapstick, just one minor nut shot at the end. Same goes for the numerous chase sequences in the premiere, which are all played pretty straight.
"And I won't even crack a smile."
As pilots are wont to do, there's a handful of more expensive-looking set pieces. The most notable one is Carter's first scene, in which he rides the side of a helicopter across the LA sky. Unfortunately, it's paired with the most overplayed song of 2015, "Uptown Funk." The other big action sequence involves a clever (but still low-key) skirmish set around a bunch of Terracotta Warriors, which both Lee and the bad guys try to avoid as they fight. That said, if this is the best the Rush Hour TV show has to offer, I can't say I'm really sold, especially considering this is poised to be a case-of-the-week show -- at least I assume. CBS only made the first episode available to screen.
The Verdict
CBS's Rush Hour doesn't outshine the original movie, or even the sequel, but I guess it's somewhat better than the third one. That doesn't seem like high praise, I know, and that's because it isn't. While the network's Limitless TV series has had some success with taking that film's original premise and putting a fresh spin on it, Rush Hour feels like a straight rehash of its 1998 predecessor. Granted, the tone is right and some of the fight scenes are cool, but the jokes, characters and Lee's underlying storyline aren't strong enough yet to justify a long-form take on the movies.
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