* WHERE: Theaters everywhere.

* WHEN: Opens today.

* RATING: PG-13 for sequences of action violence, sexual content, nudity and language.

* RUNNING TIME: 91 minutes.

* BOTTOM LINE: The third (and, can we hope, final?) installment in the action-buddy franchise just spins its wheels.

When you cajole a major movie studio into paying for your vacation in Paris - and get the chance to meet a couple of screen legends while you're there - the least you could do is bring home a movie that doesn't suck.

No such luck with "Rush Hour 3," which again reunites bombastic director Brett Ratner, action star Jackie Chan and motormouth comic Chris Tucker for more thrown-together fight scenes, car chases and comedy that's sophomoric and leeringly homophobic.

Chan's character, Hong Kong police inspector Lee, is back where he was in the first "Rush Hour," protecting a Chinese ambassador (Tzi Ma) who is about to reveal the secret of the Triads (or Chinese Mafia) to an international justice council. When a sniper tries to kill the ambassador, Lee springs into action - and gets backup from his old partner, L.A. cop James Carter (Chris Tucker). The sniper turns out to be a Japanese gangster, Kenji (Hiroyuki Sanada, the spaceship captain in "Sunshine"), who knows Lee from childhood.

The trail of clues in Jeff Nathanson's chaotic script leads Lee and Carter to Paris - where they run afoul of an officious French police inspector (played by the director Roman Polanski?!?) and a cabby ("My Wife Is an Actress" star and director Yvan Attal) who hates Americans because they are too violent. Paris, coincidentally, also is where the Chinese ambassador's daughter Soo Yung, all grown up from the first movie (and played by Chinese actress Jingchu Zhang), is hiding from the Triads with the French consul Reynard, played by the great Swedish actor Max Von Sydow. (There's no truth to the story that Von Sydow invited his old mentor Ingmar Bergman to the premiere, but Bergman took the easy way out.)

The plot twists and red herrings that follow are designed for two reasons: to set up increasingly improbable fight scenes for Chan and Tucker, and to set up Tucker's increasingly strained jokes. And in spite of Chan's decision to fight a woman ("Memoirs of a Geisha's" Youki Kudoh) - something he didn't do in "Rush Hour 2" (when his opponent would have been Ziyi Zhang) - the series' penchant for misogynist and homophobic humor remains intact.

Ratner tries to lampoon the violence in his movies, as if it gets him off the hook for serving up so much mindless - but blood-free PG-13 - carnage. It doesn't, and "Rush Hour 3" leaves you feeling as beat-up as Chan's sparring partners.

---

* SEAN P. MEANS can be reached at movies@sltrib.com or 801-257-8602. Send comments about this review to livingeditor@sltrib.com.