The Tuxedo

December 10, 2004

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 96 min Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

The Tuxedo stars Jackie Chan playing a guy who does not know any martial arts. And it gets more screwed up and convoluted from there.

The Tuxedo

Chan plays a cabbie-turned-chauffer named Jimmy Tong. Tong is a normal guy with a bit of a self esteem problem who finds himself working for a secret agent named Clark Devlin. When Devlin gets injured, Tong fills in for him. How does a “normal” guy fill in for a secret agent? Easy, he wears his tux. But this is no ordinary tux, it is high tech and gives the person wearing it skills ranging from Kung Fu Master to Master Booty Shaker.

Tong is paired up with a rookie female field agent, played by Jennifer Love Hewitt to chase down the arch villain. As with all good secret agent villains, he has a wild plan to take over the world. This guy is going to do it by tainting the world water supply so he can conquer the bottled water market. If the premise sounds ludicrous, it only gets worse as the details are filled in.

We have no problem suspending disbelief, overlooking plot holes you could drive a truck through and such as long as a movie is entertaining. Unfortunately, this one just does not click at all. Many of the bits come across as totally forced down our throats and end up being annoying. The movie was 96 minutes long and it felt more like a 2 hour 45minute Tom Hanks epic.

We love Jackie Chan, but this movie just doesn’t work. There weren’t even any really big stunts to begin to make up for the fact we’re sitting in a bad movie. Even the outtakes at the end of the movie were mostly Jackie struggling with english instead of nearly killing himself. The movie gets 2 stars from us. Skip it at the theater for sure. If you’re a big fan of Chan, it might be worth a rental.

Posted by Billy Bob | Filed Under 2 Stars, Action, Debi Mazar, Jackie Chan, Jason Isaacs, Jennifer Love Hewitt, PG-13, Ritchie Coster, Theatrical