ScoPi

It's been twelve years since Ringo Lam directed a full length film, but his new movie Wild City doesn't feel particularly special. It's a low budget thriller about a bunch of sad sacks who steal money from a corrupt lawyer and are harassed by gangsters.

Louis Koo plays T-Man, a disgraced former cop who owns a bar. One night a woman, Yun (Liya Tong), gets badly drunk at his bar, and T-Man, worried for her safety, takes her to the house of Mona, the woman who helped raise him. Together with Mona's taxi-driving son Chung (Shawn Yue), T-Man tries to help Yun get her car back the next day (she lost the key while drunk), but she's kidnapped off the street by a Taiwanese gang! After a car chase T-Man and Chung manage to stop the gang from escaping with her, but she disappears as soon as the police show up.

It develops that Yun stole a lot of money from her lawyer boyfriend, who was heavily involved in organized crime. She convinces T-Man and Chung to help her retrieve the money, which is in a briefcase in the back of her car, resulting in an escalating series of chases, fights, and double crosses.

Most of the movie lacks any distinctive style. The early action scenes would not be out of place in an American TV series. The big chase/shootout at the end of the movie includes moments that almost feel like they could be from golden age of Hong Kong action movies, but there aren't many of them. This is not the return to form fans of Ring Lam have been waiting for.

Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson are back as Chon Wang and Roy O' Bannon, and that what this movie gives us: more of what we saw before, not that that's a bad thing. The original Shanghai Noon was a fun little film, and this one is too. But it isn't really as funny because we've seen most of it before. Most of the original humor comes from making fun of Britain, which I'm certainly not averse to.

Jackie Chan choreographed the fights for the movie and seemed to have a lot more freedom than any of his past US film. If you've seen Miracles, you'll recognize the style Jackie is using here. A lot less gritty, much more funny prop use. There's a very nice fight with Donnie Yen, and all comedy bits are pretty good, especially the homage to Gene Kelly.

Where the first movie was a tribute to seemingly every Western ever made, Shanghai Knights is a tribute to the physical comedians of the early cinema, with references to, among others, the Keystone Cops, Abbott and Costello, the Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, and of course Charlie Chaplin. The ending of the film takes the concept full circle, promising an interesting sequel, though I have no idea if it will ever be made.

It would take more time than I'm allowed here to enumerate

everything that's wrong with this movie. This move has the

all the earmarks of project that was made with enthusiasm

by people who were blind to how flawed the project from

the concept stage.

Let's talk about the plot for a second. Why would the chief of

alien security train a "man-animal" with information that

detailed? Does Terl not suspect something is up when Johnny somehow mines MINTED BARS out of a mountainside? And the physics of the finale, where a single nuclear weapon destroys an entire planet, is ludicrous. No matter how much the atmosphere of Psychlo

reacts with "radioactivity" there is still a limit to the amount

of energy that a nuclear bomb releases. Period.

And the acting. Pepper needs to find a character. Travolta is

ripping off licks from Brian Blessed, but Brian would never

be in a movie this bad. Whitaker is the only person who

strikes the right tone, but man, he needs a better agent. I

hope he got paid well.

And finally, the style. The director of this film has worked on

some good movies (not as a director), and he knows what

a good movie looks like, but not why. Roger, dude, you're

supposed to use tilted camera angles for emphasis. When

every other shot is tilted, it doesn't mean anything!

The debate will rage eternally: Is the worst movie since

Showgirls? Or is it the worst movie since Ishtar?