September has a reputation for being an almost anemic month for film-goers. After all the summer blockbusters are gone'yet too early for those films vying for a coveted Oscar'September is no-man's land. This dry spell in the year probably explains why some studio executive, in his ultimate wisdom, thought that a film starring Jackie Chan and Jennifer Love Hewitt would be worth green-lighting.
The opening scene shows us a picturesque stream. There are soothing clips of mountain rivers, which pan away to reveal a peaceful white-tail deer'and then the deer urinates in the river. Considering that neither the river nor the deer play any further part in the movie, this scene is obviously the director warning the audience of what they're in for.
But back to the movie'it revolves around taxi-driver Jimmy Tong (Chan), whose speedy-yet-safe driving skills earn him a chauffeur gig for flashy secret agent Clark Devlin'whose only rule is that you never touch his tuxedo. During an early drive, the car is bugged and followed by a skateboard bomb. Despite Tong's heroic driving, he can't escape. As both men dive from the exploding car, Devlin is severely hurt and tells Tong to go home and wear the tuxedo.
But it's no ordinary tuxedo. This is the Tactical Uniform eXperiment: a tuxedo that molds itself to the wearer, giving them abilities that would make Inspector Gadget envious. With modes galore, the tuxedo suddenly gives Tong the ability to dance like James Brown and fight like, well, Jackie Chan. Now acting as Clark Devlin, Tong is paired with agent Del Blaine (Love Hewitt) in order to investigate the evil villain, Banning.
Banning is indeed evil'he's the head of a water bottling company. He is the reason Evian costs more than unleaded gas. And his nefarious plot is dehydrating water.
Yes, that's right, dehydrating water'contaminated water that, when consumed, will actually break down all the water molecules in your body until you dehydrate to death. He plans to become rich by contaminating every source of water in the world (except his own) with this horrible weapon using his army of water striders.
Obviously, this film's plot comes up just short. Fortunately, it's an action film carried by Jackie Chan. Incredible fights and mind-blowing stunts are expected and yet someone along the way decided that \Tuxedo"" should be light on action. What's worse is that when fights do break out, they're often performed by stunt doubles or rely on CGI.
With no plot and no action, there at least has to be some of that lovable Chan humor, right? He was hilarious with Chris Tucker in ""Rush Hour"" and Owen Wilson in ""Shanghai Noon,"" but unfortunately, Chan isn't graced with a comedic genius to co-star this time around. He gets Jennifer Love Hewitt, whose sole purpose in the entire movie is to stand around and be eye candy for all the adolescent boys in the audience.
With a pathetic premise, disappointing action and non-existent humor, ""Tuxedo"" ends up being a complete waste of Chan's talents and the audience's time.
