I've said it before and I'll say it again. Poor Jackie Chan. I saw this movie over the weekend. Every time he comes out with a movie, I go see it with the sincere hope that he'll finally have an American film that will live up to his Hong Kong history. The idea that kept me hooked this time was the fact that this movie was directed by Gordon Chan. Since Jackie has come to America this time, he has developed the unfortunate habit of being directed by people who have never made a movie in their lives. He got moderately lucky with Brett Ratner, and absolutely crapped on with everyone else. This time the man behind the helm was the director of, among other things, Fist of Legend, one of the best films ever made. So I thought it might be good. Well, the best thing that I can think to say about it is that it was definately better than The Tuxedo. So if you liked that movie, you'll love this one. But if you liked The Tuxedo, you're insane, and you'd probably be entertained by Carrot Top's AT&T commercials, so don't take that last sentence as a rave review.
Anyway, I don't want to go too deeply into the silly plot, the sidekick who was trying way too hard to be a British Jim Carrey, and the obvious wirework and fake-looking stunts that made Jackie appear about as talented as Jean Claude Van Damme. The bottom line is that this movie was around the same quality as, say, Shanghai Knights. It was vaguely entertaining--it kept me from playing Solitarie on my palm pilot in the theatre. But it will definately not become a part of my Jackie Chan collection. His best movies leave me with a feeling of excitement that won't go away for days. Movies like this leave me with a feeling of sad nostalgia for Dragons Forever, Drunken Master, Police Story and Rumble in the Bronx, and wondering what ever happened to the genius that made those films.
Did anyone else see this movie?
Posted by The Silverblue Sun (Member # 1630) on :
Ok. Yes. Jackie Chan and Claire Forlani, and their agents saw this movie. Are you happy now you stubborn bastard? Posted by Speed (Member # 5162) on :
Wow, you put a lot of work into that one, didn't you?
Posted by Pod (Member # 941) on :
I saw it, if you read this review at the new york times, you'll note something.
This movie was supposed to be 120 minutes long.
The final cut? 89 minutes.
The movie was pretty bad, but if you look at how the movie flows, it's obvious that the movie would have been much better had it possessed the other half an hour of footage.
So frankly, i don't think this movie deserves as much flak as people seem to be giving it. Tell the movie execs who killed the film. (also the action is much better than movies like the Tuxedo, and directed by Sammo Hung no less! rawk)
Posted by Speed (Member # 5162) on :
Pod:
I don't want to derail my own thread, but I just looked at your profile. I'm fascinated by your occupation. I love linguistics. I've always wanted to go into it, but I'm not the follow-your-dreams kind of guy. How did you get into it? How much do you know of which languages? What are you going to do when you graduate?
More on the topic, yes, Sammo is the man. I think I actually would have felt better about this movie if he and Gordon Chan wouldn't have been involved. I was expecting so much, I guess I was bound to be disappointed.
Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
![[Mad]](mad.gif)