A bad fit
>> The Tuxedo is strictly for desperate Chan fans

by CHRIS BARRY

With The Tuxedo, Jackie Chan—possibly the greatest comic actor to hit the big screen since Arnold Schwarzenegger—chopsockys his way through a bunch of bad guys and wins the girl in this low-brow pseudo parody of James Bond films.

But Austin Powers it ain’t. Billed as an action comedy, The Tuxedo is neither funny, nor is there enough action likely to satisfy any but the most desperate of Chan fans.

Chan plays Jimmy Tong, a hapless cab driver with a talent for endangering people’s lives by driving recklessly through downtown streets at 200 kilometres an hour. So great a driver, he gets recruited by a secret government crime agency, the CSA, to chauffeur around one of their top spies, a Bond-like character named Clark Devlin. But when Devlin gets blown up by a “skateboard bomb,” the bumbling cabbie finds himself taking on Devlin’s identity and carrying on the boss man’s mission to foil an evil organization’s plot to poison the world’s water supply. He’s aided in this endeavour by rookie CSA analyst/agent Del Blaine, a miserable bitch of a woman played convincingly by the multi-talented Jennifer Love Hewitt, and, of course, by Devlin’s top secret tuxedo, a sharp looking number that, when worn, gives its wearer super duper powers.

What wonderful possibilities this incredible premise allows for. Not only does this nifty tuxedo give goofy ole Tong unsurpassed fighting skills, it also enables him to climb buildings, wow the ladies, and fill in for James Brown at one of his hotel gigs after accidentally knocking the singer out backstage. Indeed, this is a very dumb movie.

But outside of simply being stupid, The Tuxedo fails in that it doesn’t even allow for Chan to pull off any of his trademarked stunts; most of the fight sequences are seemingly done with wires and/or computer animation rather than relying on anything resembling choreography. Unless you are the greatest of Chan fans, you would be well advised to skip this dog and wait for Rush Hour 3 to come out. It’s hard to imagine it being much worse than this half-hearted piece of poo. :

The Tuxedo opens Friday, Sept. 27

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