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The Tuxedo (Widescreen Edition)

The Tuxedo (Widescreen Edition)

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: comedic bomb
Review: "The Tuxedo" is a comedy of almost unimaginable badness, easily the worst movie Jackie Chan has ever made. What can one expect from a film whose opening shot is a close-up of a deer urinating in a mountain stream? Unfortunately, things only go downhill from there.

Chan has made a career out of playing well-meaning schnooks who just happen to be extraordinarily skillful practitioners of martial arts acrobatics. Chan, thanks to his amazing physical dexterity, deadpan delivery and infectious likeability, has usually been able to rise above his material, which has not always been great but which has, in the past. I also will not attempt to recap the movie's plotline but will merely note that the story hits new levels of mind-numbing imbecility. In an attempt to overcome the witless incoherence of the film's screenplay, director Kevin Donovan has his characters running around in a madcap frenzy, yet the movie itself sits lifeless on the screen. It's appalling to see all that talent and energy expended and wasted on so humorless a trifle.

What can one say about a comedy thriller in which none of the jokes work, none of the plot details make any sense, and none of the secondary characters produce the slightest impression on the work as a whole? Even more to the point, what can one say about a Jackie Chan film in which even the martial arts scenes lack definition and creativity? The best one can do in such circumstances is to offer one's condolences to Mr. Chan and his gifted costar, Jennifer Love Hewitt, for having to appear in this travesty, and to wish them all the best in their next film project.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Dumb, but a lot of fun!
Review: Action star Jackie Chan has recently expressed an interest in moving away from stunts and kung fu, and more towards dramatic roles. The thinking here is sensible and not unexpected. Chan is a bit past it to continue the jaw-dropping stunts and fights that he's famous for, and has accepted the enevitable fact that retirement must one day come.

Here, Chan gives us a few impressive fights and stunts, but mostly he plays a character part, in keeping with his new career direction.

Taking the place of his injured super-spy boss, Clark Devlin, Chan takes on the bad guys in Devlin's place. Along the way, he hooks up with another agency spy (Jennifer Love Hewitt), who falls in love with him. The bad guys are planning to corner the world's bottled water supply using a very unlikely method, and Chan must use Devlin's impressive super-spy tuxedo to stop them.

Oh, it was dumb, no question about it. But, regardless, I just plain liked it anyway. There was a lot of slapstick, and for some reason, a lot of non-PC humor. Frankly, it was just plain funny.

Probably the best thing here is the Clark Devlin character. Devlin is the perfect Bond-ish agent; suave, sophisticated, irresistable to women, and super-cool. In fact, it makes one long to see actor Jason Issacs play 007 for real in a new Bond film (sorry, Pierce).

While this would be just fine as a renter, I think you should try to catch it in the theater if possible. Dumb or not, it was a fun movie, and it may be interesting for Chan fans to see a sampling of the new direction the actor/stuntman/martial artist is trying to grow in.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very Cheesy
Review: I Know I Know Critics Hate It But I Enjoyed It Like I Enjoy Most Jackie Chan Movies. Jennifer Love Hewitt At Her Hottest. But Why The Bad Guys Nasal Gilfriend. I Hated Her. If You Are Able To Suspend Belief Go See This Because It Is Fun.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: What a waste!
Review: Another victim of the Hollywood monster! Lousy, lousy, lousy! The movie lacked even a semi-decent plot, acting with a notable exception of a five minutes screen time of Clark Devlin character (whoever this British bloke was), directing, music, did I say plot? If you are die-hard Jackie Chan's fan, as I am, save $8.50 and rent this stupid flick later. Otherwise, watch the movies from his past glory. RIP.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Wasted talent, horrendous plot...
Review: I usually like Jackie Chan movies. I grew up on them as a kid in Asia. I would read the subtitles on his Cantonese films. Ever since he started making American films, however, his action has been less exciting/audacious/suicidal (perhaps also because of age) and the plots have never been more ludicrous. In this film, he's a cab driver that gets recruited to drive for a super-spy. When the super-spy gets injured, he puts on the suit and inadvertently fills in for him. The bad guys wants to take over the world by providing the only clean source of drinking water and contaminating the rest. Ugh!

Jackie Chan is perhaps better known for his unique, slapstick style of martial arts. However, in this film, Jackie plays Johnny Tong a cab driver who knows no martial arts and would rather hide under cars rather than confront a bully. It's the Tuxedo that "gives" him his special abilities including a Fight Mode which turns him back into regular ...-kicking Jackie (but much tamer). There were also bunch of Matrix-like scenes which I'm beginning to get tired of.

I have no major complaints on the acting, the casting or even the directing. I do have major problems with the writers of this movie. It's not good enough. This is not a good Jackie Chan film. It's something I'd like to see Dana Carvey get stuck with. Now there's your unwitting hero. But why sully Chan's reputation with such .... ? Had the writers actually watched Chan's earlier films maybe they would appreciate his true abilities and write accordingly.

Don't focus on the plot. Just enjoy how much fun Chan and Hewitt have on-screen and leave it at that.

LEAP rating (each out of 5):
============================
L (Language) - 4 (Jackie Chan does the best he can with a deficient script and lacking plot)
E (Erotica) - 0.5 (n/a - but I never know Hewitt had cleavage, and I swear to god one of the bad guys copped a feel when they fell into a pool)
A (Action) - 3 (usual Jackie Chan slapstick martial arts made less interesting by the tuxedo special f/x enhancements)
P (Plot) - 4 (cab driver turns subsitute super-spy out to save the world from a bottled water magnate bent on poisoning the earth's water supply)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Jackie Chan Kicks....!
Review: Jackie Chan is a very cool actor from such movies as the two movies in the Rush Hour seris.Before that he was known for his amazing kung foo abilties from such movies as The Legend of Drunken Master.Now Jackie Chan returns once again in the action comendy adenture The Tuxedo.

To start I just have to admit that the preveiws for the movie were not promising a fun funny action packed movie but a boring stupid predictable movie.I finally agreed to see it only because it did so well in the box office and people seemed to think it was pretty good.I have to admit that I was wrong to judge a movie by it's preveiws as I have done in the past.

This movie was not as funny as Rush Hour was probally because it didn't have a really good comendian.Chris Tucker is always doing funny stuff and Jackie Chan's jokes are usally dry and dull but that is what makes them funny.This movie with Jennifur Love Hewertt didn't really give it the comendy that it should have gotten.The tuxedo gags were fun sometimes and the joke in the hotel room were probally the highlight of the comendy segments but that rules that subplot out.

The action scenes were plntiful.Jackie Chan and his kung foo fighting is always entertaining and even sometimes amusing.In this movie he does not let me down with his ablities to fight and it was fun to watch him battle the bad guys one again.The highlight of the action segments were probally the car scenes in the beginning of the movie.

The movie is about Jimmy Tong who is a taxi cab driver who is known for his hign speed.His driving impresses Steena who is a secret agent.She gired him to be a driver for a secret agent named Clark Devlin.Devlin is a ladies man and owns a tuxedo in which he warns Jimmy never to touch it.Jimmy and Devlin grow a liking to each other and Jimmy is heartbroken who Devlin in hurt after running away from a bomb.Clark gives Jimmy a watch and a name and tells him to "wear it." Jimmy puts on the tuxedo and learns that it is a device that it's wearer could do anything from fighting to dancing.Jimmy gets a phone call from rookie secret agent Del who thinks that he is Devlin and they team up to investagate a bunniness man who is trying to corner the world market through the bottled water bunniness using the tuxedo along the way!

Another highlight of the movie was a special cameo apperences by blues singer James Brown.To conclude The Tuxedo was a good movie with good action and good comendy.It's an entertaining movie that I recomend.

ENJOY!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A great slap-stick comedy !
Review: This is a great slap-stick comedy! Jackie Chan can do anything, And Jennifer Love Huewitt was sizziling as his partner. This was a great family comedy with a dows of one liners and action! I coudn't stop laughing, even when it was serious.This is a great flick for everyone, even for those who don't like Jackie Chan.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Choppy
Review: This is just another bit of Hollywood fluff rolled out to dazzle the eye and numb the brain. The plot was do-able but the directing was poor, the charachters were undeveloped, the events were unconnected, the story line was uninspired, just a lot of special effects rehatched and over done. Body with no brains, another disappointment. Don't waste your money it will be on cable in two weeks.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Fun, but also chaotic, messy, and nonsensical.
Review: The Tuxedo is a movie with an identity crisis -- it can't decide whether it wants to be a vintage Jackie Chan movie, Men in Black, The Matrix, or Austin Powers.

As befitting its schizophrenic nature, the movie opens with an incredibly silly sight gag that has nothing to do with the film, but then proceeds to two promising sequences -- the visually striking title sequence, which takes place in a bottled-water factory, and the entrance of Chan's character "Jimmy Tong". The first seems to suggest director Kevin Donovan is a director of commercials and music videos; the second shows much promise in casting Chan in the role of a New York City cab driver with a frat-boy facade (check out his hilarious T-shirt). Unfortunately this scene, as with the rest of the Tuxedo, foregoes any semblance of story and character development in favour of slapstick sight gags. I'm as big a fan of a good sight gag as anybody, but the best Jackie Chan gags always blend elements of pathos, humanity and character into the fast-paced visual jokes. Donovan, unfortunately, doesn't seem to have any idea of how to let the humour help him tell the story, and the shallow, nonsensical script doesn't help. For example, Jimmy Tong's Jamaican friend disappears after the first scene; the coming together of the two plot strands (bottled water vs. Jimmy's gig as a driver); there is practically no build-up to the introduction and complication of the character Clark Devlin; and the whole concept of the bottled-water conspiracy is completely unbelievable.

Much credit to Chan, then, for making the movie work. He is always fun to watch, with his constantly entertaining self-deprecation, sense of fun, and agility. The camera work and editing of The Tuxedo commits a huge sin in capturing Chan-style action, however: Jackie Chan's whole action choreography is based upon the reality of his movements, surroundings, and hugely imaginative improvisations. Directors like Brett Ratner (Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2) and Sammo Hung (Mr. Nice Guy) wisely pull the camera back so we can see Chan really doing his moves -- the indispensable "wow" factor of Chan's movies. Donovan, on the other hand, chops the action sequences up into blurs of cuts and angles, thus violating the reality of the fabled Chan stunts and neatly destroying the very concept of Chan choreography. As a result, the action sequences in The Tuxedo look like they could've been done by other Hollywood stars and stuntmen, and Donovan's addiction to camera and editing trickery is to blame.

On the character front, I wish they could have taken the lovable crudity of the Jimmy Tong character (as in the first scene) much, much farther. After the first 10 minutes of the film, the character reverts to a much more prototypical action-comedy character that could've used much more attention to detail. But Jennifer Love Hewitt makes for a terrific foil for Chan. Though some of her attempts at over-the-top physical comedy come off as very forced, her character Del Blaine is an extremely entertaining one when she engages in neurotic, mile-a-minute verbal tirades. At this point, the contrast between Chan's gallant but stilted English and Hewitt's rat-a-tat delivery is priceless. As it is, because of Hewitt's ragged handling of the physical comedy, Chan's chemistry with her isn't as good as with Zhang Ziyi and Rosalyn Sanchez in Rush Hour 2, but it's a smart and promising direction for a Chan film heroine.

Did I have fun watching The Tuxedo? Yes. If you can look beyond the incomprehensible storytelling, complete lack of logic, the totally colourless villains (a miserable failure on Donovan's part, both in casting and in direction), the unnecessary special effects, and the disjointed stylistic conceits, you'll find quite a few good sight gags and verbal sparrings in here. I just can't help thinking that the promising Chan-Hewitt pairing deserved a much better vehicle.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Bad, bad, bad.
Review: The stunts were not interesting, the women all portrayed either as sluts or neurotic, excessive and inappropraite references to sex, lame story, dark and unhappy scenery, all add to a very bad movie. This is a most certainly not a family movie and that is shame.


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