Le Smoking

* 1/2 out of ****

When it comes to pure charisma, the only Hong Kong actor who matches with Jackie Chan is Chow Yun-Fat (who is, overall, probably a better actor). What is it about Chan that appeals to so many people? It's not only that he does all his stunts for real, but he seems like a natural, care-free, fun-loving kind of guy. In every film he's been in, you can't help but notice his enthusiasm, even when he's starring in crap.

And thus we segue to The Tuxedo, a sort-of spy spoof which Chan stars as Jimmy Tong, a reckless taxi driver with a crush on a woman working in an art exhibition. Because of his top-notch driving skills, he's hired as Clark Devlin's (Jason Isaacs) personal driver. Devlin is one suave fellow, with a fine tuxedo to boot, but he falls into a coma after an incident involving an explosive.

Tong, as his good friend and employee, feels obligated to find out what happened to his boss so he dresses himself in Devlin's tuxedo, which apparently enables the wearer superhuman ability and agility. Posing as Devlin, Tong partners with a secret agent named Del Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt) to expose a crime to poison the world's water supply.

For a good twenty or so minutes, the film is actually pretty enjoyable fluff, with a cool car "chase," which is really just Chan driving real fast, but fun to watch, nonetheless. However, once Hewitt is introduced as Chan's partner, the whole thing goes downhill with mindless blather about water. It seems the villain intends to poison the world's water supply so that only his bottled water is safe.

Utter stupidity of the plan aside (poison water, ecosystem...dead, anyone?), it's just not the kind of set-up we want for a Chan flick. This isn't the first film he's posed as a secret agent (see the far superior First Strike or Who am I?) but this time around, it ultimately drags the picture down. For one thing, the film's most interesting character isn't Chan, it's Isaacs' Clark Devlin, who really is a cool and suave individual (Isaac himself has always been a very underrated actor).

Chan is his enthusiastic self as usual, but when it comes to performing nifty stunts, forget it, the stuff here looks too manipulated, which entirely defeats the charm of watching Jackie Chan take on countless opponents. The humor isn't very good, either, with relentlessly predictable jokes ("nice rack") and an astonishingly digressive segment involving Chan performing like James Brown, which is cringe-worthy, to say the least.

Last, and possibly least, there's Jennifer Love Hewitt, who's a fairly pretty actress and as far as genuine talent goes...well, I've seen much worse (Denise Richards, I'm looking at you). But here, she's just annoying, called on by the script to do nothing but whine and complain. Worse yet, the movie never even opts to give us a good cleavage shot, which might have made the more annoying bits bearable.

As far as story goes, the plot is lame, the villains make zero impression, and the gadgets...well, the tuxedo IS the gadget and it's not a very impressive one, at that. For superior martial arts entertainment, check out First Strike or Who am I?

Disappointingly, this film was a step down for both Jackie Chan and Jennifer-Love, whom I actually idolize. Chan was trying to be funny while being 'manipulated' by the tux, but turned out to be corny (at least for me). I'm not sure if he's already too old for the job, but if he goes on with his upcoming movies like that, his name will just fade away from the movie industry, and the likes of Jet Li will very much make a better replacement for him.

The movie also proved that Love-Hewitt wasn't a comedienne after all. She's no match to Reese Witherspoon when it comes to actress versatility (the latter can do both funny and sad movies). She should just stick to drama or other pretty-girl films.

I am surprised by how low rated this film is. Don't think. Just laugh.

Jackie Chan dryly pokes fun at action film clichés. He plays a non-hero, an unassuming regular guy who can't meet a girl, or do anything except drive, who gets sucked into a ridiculous situation.

Completely unbelievable and ridiculous. Not great cinema. All action movies are that way; this is funny because of the low-key irony.

Even Jennifer Love Hewitt seems deliberately miscast, but hilarious as she vacillates between superintelligent nerd, ditz, valley girl and superheroine.

We prefer this to Austin Powers with its completely over-the-top, zero subtlety. Here the sexual innuendo would not be missed by a teenager, but would go right over the head of kids, making it a film any age could enjoy. But you have to want to laugh, not critique.

If you enjoyed Jim Carrey's "The Mask," you might enjoy this Jackie Chan film. It has a similar storyline but instead of a mask, it's a suit someone puts on and receives some supernatural powers.

It's all extremely silly but with a lot of slapstick and outrageous scenes, you are going to get some great laugh-out-loud scenes and some really stupid not-funny stuff....especially in a Chan movie. Jackie is an amazing man, with the stunts he can do at his age.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Love Hewitt is easy on the eyes, especially showing us her body, but her character in here is pretty lame. The whole movie is pretty brainless but if you don't care and just want some laughs and be entertained, this serves its purpose. It's certainly a fast-moving 99 minutes and there's nothing wrong with that.

Despite the numerous failures Jackie Chan had in trying to break into Hollywood, and now that he has, it still seems that he never quite learnt the moral of is conquest. Simply put, this was equal, nay I correct myself, can be classed below some of his other failures in terms of quality. But fortunately he has become a big enough star for the film to be pulled off - but only just

I won't try to sum up the plot, partly because it's be done by others already, and partly because it is so disjointed and skewed that it struggles to make any sense. Frankly, the intelligence level of the characters appeared to be equivalent to that of a carrot, and indeed the writers seemed to share that intelligence. Even Saturday morning kids cartoons (including Jackie's own) have much greater knowledge than this!

After the success of the Rush Hour films, and Shanghai Noon/Knights, this film was a sheer disappointment. I love seeing Jackie Chan as part of a double act in his English language films, but The Tuxedo shows he can't quite pull it off alone. Jennifer Love Hewitt appeared as simple window dressing for Chan, and despite the miniscule amount of chemistry that did appear (better than none), Chan looked desperate in trying to pull of his one-liners.

It is hard to understand how the script left the storyboard as it did. The plot isn't the worst in the world, but the way the film was constructed left very little artistic and entertainment value. It was almost too rushed. And written without Jackie Chan in mind, I feel. It's too formulaic, too 'let's make a quick buck'.

I am a devoted Jackie Chan fan and one of my life's joys was the fortune to meet him and to organise his appearance at Oxford University in 2000. It's hard for a fan to criticise his hero, but sometimes he must, especially when, as in this case, his loyal fans pay money only to be disappointed.

The Tuxedo has to be one of Jackie's lowlights. I very much hope that the man can continue to work on good scripts such as Rush Hour and leave behind the non-comical, formulaic scripts such as the Tuxedo that seem to have been written while on the toilet seat.

Sorry Jackie, but one I have to advise to avoid.