Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I like the trailer for this film. I think it’s fun and slick, like INSPECTOR GADGET done right for adults. I’ll admit it... I’m a pretty shameless Jackie Chan whore. Anyone who read my interview with him knows that. Him using me in a demonstration of fight moves is one of the highlights of my time at AICN. Ever since I saw WHEELS ON MEALS for the first time back in ’88, I’ve been a fan of his work, and to see him making films like this, giant Dreamworks FX comedies, is a delight.
So let’s see how well this scooper thought it all came together, since we’re not going to see it for ourselves until this October...
Moriarty,
Just got back from viewing THE TUXEDO here in the outskirts of L.A. I got the chance to review it and if you decide to use it, here it is:
Note: Spoilers
Reaction: Mixed
What looked like a funny take on the James Bond films turned out to be an effort of lesser good. Primarily, The Tuxedo suffers from a really mediocre script, but Jackie Chan is able to restore most of the damage with his wit, style, and charm. Having seen this new Jackie Chan film, I think it is rather sad to say that Jimmy Tong is one of his less demanding characters.
His new film, despite having a really odd opening sequence, begins as a fun ride. Jimmy, a great NY cabbie, has a problem with women, especially since he can't open his mouth to talk to them. This dilemma should have opened the film, but it comes second to the deer urinating in a waterfall. After blowing his plan to ask out a nice Chinese girl at an art gallery and avoiding a bike messenger on acid, Jimmy returns to his cab for one last job. He finds Steena (Debbie Mazar) in his cab, who agrees to double the far if he can get her to work before she finishes applying her make-up. After a crazy ride, Steena recruits Jimmy to chauffeur secret service-type Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs).
Everything goes fine until an unfortunate, yet clever bomb attack puts Devlin in the hospital. Jimmy promises Devlin to find the ones responsible. With nowhere else to go, Jimmy returns to Devlin's place to think. There he sees "the tuxedo" again, and even though he knows not to touch it, he tries it on. The tux (funny how Q never came up with a tux like this; James Bond should protest) transforms Jimmy into the ultimate agent, and it is not long after he decides to assume Devlin's identity and finish where Devlin left off. Joining Jimmy in the mission is Del Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt), a rookie C.S.A. analyst/agent.
They team up to stop a man named Dietrich Banning (Ritchie Coster) from poisoning the world's drinking water. Banning's lab professor (Peter Stormare in a very strange role) has created a stealth virus that, if consumed by drinking water, dehydrates a person so effectively the organs begin to shrivel. If that is not evil enough, Banning plans to poison the world's drinking water so he can sell his as the only clean water source, which will not only result in a monopoly but also a lot of money.
The first major problem of The Tuxedo begins here. Banning is the typical bad guy. He is neither menacing nor evil, but a really lame character. But before the audience finds out about his evil plans, it is treated, or forced, to watch many Jackie Chan/Jennifer Love Hewitt moments of espionage, confusion, and "what is wrong with you".
As a member of the audience, I waited for about fifty minutes to find out exactly where the film was going. The problem here is with the script, which I really think lacks focus and a solid story. However, the chemistry between Chan and Hewitt worked quite well, even though it tends to shift too many times in tone and character. Hewitt's Del Blaine is incredibly sexy for a C.S.A. agent and therefore loses some credibility. Chan's Jimmy Tong is believable as the average guy, but when he becomes tuxedo-ed, so to speak, he just feels too much like Jackie Chan. His character, physically speaking, demands less than his previous ones. Most of the fight sequences seems to be the work of wire-work instead of choreography. This is kind of disappointing, since Chan is so incredibly flexible and cool.
Entertainment-wise, The Tuxedo has several goods to offer. Chan is really funny and most of the incredible situations the tuxedo put Jimmy into were a lot of fun to watch. Although the film is not a comedy per se, it contains some comedic confusion and general laughs.
Some of the violence poses as another negative aspect of this film. Case in point, the deaths of three characters were really hard and disgusting to watch. I think they were especially unsettling for children under thirteen, yet I was turning my head as well. One particular death is so unnecessarily over the top and disgusting that I begin to wonder what the filmmaker's intent was.
The screening tested the opinions of 12 to 45 year-old's. The research group even had two different questionnaires, under and above 12, which I have never seen before. As it stands now, The Tuxedo is not quite PG-13 material. I think the final product needs cutting to secure the rating, since there is some suggested nudity and violence. The cut shown, which ran roughly 100 minutes, looked pretty much finished, except for a lot of temporary music (even capitalizing on the Matrix score and Bond theme, or was it a Moby remix?!) and some color indifferences. I hope that by the Fall when it is schedule to be released, DreamWorks can fix some of Tuxedo's flaws.
Directed by first-timer Kevin Donovan, The Tuxedo is a mixed bag of positives and negatives. He's got an interesting vision, but is it really his own? I am not to question his integrity as a director, although I am sure he is a cool guy. The writing team behind it, two of whom where responsible for Crazy/Beautiful, managed to write an interesting idea but did not execute the idea well enough, I think.
The Tuxedo is going to draw in a crowd of Jackie Chan fans and I would not be surprised if the film turned up good numbers this Fall. Jackie Chan can act, as he proves here, but do not get your hopes up for incredible fights. The outtakes, as with all Chan films, make the audience laugh one more time. Here, however, most of them were acting mess-ups, while maybe one of them involved a fight gone wrong. So now then, in general, the convoluted script creates too many negatives that overpower most of the good qualities of The Tuxedo. But hey, at least it is a Jackie Chan flick!
Take care,
Dabbler In The Arts.
Thanks, man. You’ve piqued my curiousity about this one now, and I’ve gotta figure out how my henchmen are going to get me a peek. Until then...
"Moriarty" out.
