The Tuxedo (2002) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

Jackie Chan plays the humble driver of a super-suave secret agent. The spy is the kind of guy who is so debonair and slick that he makes James Bond look like Gilligan. It turns out that all of the agent's powers are in his computer-controlled suit, which allows him to perform flawlessly in many fields of human endeavor, ranging from martial arts to lighting ladies' cigarettes, even encompassing singing and dancing.

I guess you can figure out the rest. The agent goes down, slips into a coma, and Jackie has to fill in with the help of the magical clothing. Of course "The Agency" sends along a real spy to keep tabs on him, but since Jackie's partner turns out to be a brainy agency scientist who begged for her first field assignment, they are both essentially clueless about double-nought spyin'.

Critics generally hated this typical Jackie Chan action comedy. On the other hand, critics don't tend to have much regard for Jackie in general. Unlike many of them, I'm a Jackie Chan fan. He has a great combination of boyish charm, good humor, and creative action. The martial arts scenes in his movies are usually both hilarious and astoundingly athletic. The guy is so graceful that he's even a great dancer, as he proves in this movie when he and his suit have to fill in for James Brown. But as much as I like Jackie in general, I didn't find a lot to like in this film. The James Brown thing isn't bad at all, but that's about the full extent of the film's entertainment value. The action is average, which means it's below Jackie's usual high standard. The jokes flop and even the closing credits, which are usually so good in Jackie's movies, are boring and repetitious, with only one running gag, the fact that Jennifer Love Hewitt couldn't keep a straight face around Jackie.

When the entertainment and action lag, there's no help from the plot and character development. In fact, the narrative is nearly incomprehensible. It appears that the film got edited quite a bit. It seems that about a dozen scenes were either deleted or edited at the last minute, as indicated by two things: (1) the scenes in the DVD "deleted footage" are fully finished in every way, so they must have been eliminated late in the development process; (2) the story would make much more sense if all the "deleted footage" were to be added back into the film. By cutting out or shortening those scenes, the filmmakers spoiled just about every scene which features a minor character. It seems that random people just drop in and out of Jackie's life without any rhyme or reason, and some scenes seem to end in the middle. Actually, the scenes with the major characters aren't much more compelling. The bad guys seem merely silly, not threatening, and we don't even learn anything about the characters played by Chan and Hewitt.

Lacking both pizzazz and coherence, the whole film drags.