Here’s another 90’s comedy by Jackie Chan.
This is one of those movies that revolves around a concept that gives the main character incredible abilities, similar to The Medallion. So why not use Jackie’s abilities as an awesome stunt guy to display those abilities?
These abilities come from a super advanced technology within a Tuxedo (surprise!). Jackie’s character James is a Taxi driver who gets offered a job as a highly paid driver for a secret agent…with a secret…
…yeah, the tuxedo is his source of awesomeness.
This agent, named Clark Devlin, is taken out by evil bottled water tycoons (?) to prevent him from shutting them down. In his last breaths before becoming unconscious and taken to hospital, he tells James to ‘wear the suit’ and continue his work. So James wears the suit and takes on Clark’s missions alongside Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character Del.
As a comedy, this movie is very standard if you’re thinking ‘cheesy family comedy’ – the type you get when you watch Jackie Chan’s American films. There’s the obvious breaking in of the suit and learning what it’s capable of – to which he destroys half of Clark Devlins office and nearly gets Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character killed.
Naturally the bad guy learns the how to use the suit in about 3 seconds later in the movie.
The back and forths between James and Del are kinda boring and overdone, but seems to be the main focus when it comes to the onscreen chemistry of the characters. Overall, it doesn’t make for a really funny movie.
Although I had to laugh at Jennifer Love Hewitt’s awful ‘Snake style’ Kung Fu impression with the high pitch Bruce Lee screams! Just a small chuckle to myself.
As an action filom… just forget it!
Jackie does do some very ‘OK’ stuff when compared to his highlight reel, but it’s just too focused on being an American comedy. The action is incredibly thin and a lot of it is actually Jackie Chans movements being used for comedic purposes. The rest is special effects, wires and all of the really unimpressive looking stuff martial arts fans have grown tired of.
I can see that Jackie was trying to hit the mainstream a bit more with this film, but as he himself had proved time again with movies like The Protector, Jackie is far too good for ‘mainstream’ and should sink to it’s level.
Overall it’s another film fit for the kids but not for action fans. Give it a miss!
