My goodness! Even the dependable Jackie Chan is now reduced to making dumb and brainless Hollywood blockbusters these days, which really is saying something for the current state of the ailing action genre. Let us hope that the sequels and superheroes in store for 2003 set the balance right again. Until then, the only cool thing about seeing THE TUXEDO at the cinema was the BULLETPROOF MONK trailer put on beforehand. Jackie's latest film is a woefully bad spin on the James Bond-influenced spy genre, complete with a nicely smooth performance from Jason Isaacs as a top-secret British agent.Sadly, the film quickly falls apart, both due to the introduction of the sexy but vacuous Jennifer Love Hewitt (the most unfeasible female scientist since Denise Richards in THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH) and the idiotic storyline, about a guy dehydrating the world's water supply to sell his own mineral water. Yes, you heard that correctly and I'm not making it up. The bad guy's plan is so contrived, so ridiculous, so stupid, so irrelevant that I felt physically bad for Jackie in this film. The climax of the film, which should be exciting, is just a mish-mash of poor plot exposition, dumb ideas, and far too much footage of Miss Hewitt, who thinks she can get away with going around and insulting Jackie for most of the film. Lady, have some respect for a guy who was nearly breaking his neck on a daily basis before you were born.The worst thing about THE TUXEDO is the reliance on wire work and CGI-enhanced stunts and fight sequences, which are a bit of a betrayal seeing as Jackie has always prided himself on doing all his own stunts. The film sees Jackie involved in lots of American-style humour which doesn't work too well (his Chinese brand of slapstick is a lot better), and in fact the only time I laughed was the fight scene he has with his trousers down (very amusing). Actually the fights in the film are a big disappointment and sorely lacking in the excitement stakes. Apart from the final "battle of the suits" there isn't really much in the way of kung fu action. Instead, expect long stretches of dumbness and boredom.Jackie has never been a great actor but he's by far the best thing this film has to offer despite the lack of martial arts. Jennifer Love Hewitt is gorgeous, yes, but she's there only as a sexy female sidekick and her acting skills are zilch. The cameraman seems more interested in her cleavage than actually watching her speak. Jason Isaacs is fantastic but spends the entire film in a coma, while the lead villain played by Ritchie Coaster is pathetic and not imposing at all. They even waste Peter Stormare in a dumb scientist role which is something. Only James Brown comes out of the film with anything in the way of a reputation intact. With two new films lined up, I'm hoping that this is a mere blip in Jackie's career and he'll prove his worth in future efforts.

Jimmy Tong (Jackie Chan) is a taxi driver who can't seem to ask his dreamgirl out. Steena (Debi Mazar) comes in and hires the fast driver to be the chauffeur for super wealthy Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs). They become friendly but Jimmy doesn't know that Devlin is a superspy. A bombing puts Devlin in the hospital. Jimmy goes back to the mansion and puts on the tuxedo which turns out to be a high tech gear with extraordinary powers. Del Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt) is support at CSA headquarters who mistakenly assumes that Jimmy is Devlin as Jimmy goes on assignment against the villain Dietrich Banning (Ritchie Coaster) and his plan to take over the water supply.Jackie Chan is not a good comedian in English. Some people make that mistake from his work in the Rush Hour movies. Essentially, he is the straight man in those movies. He still has difficulties doing non-physical comedic work in English. This just puts all that up front. The location work isn't the best trying to make the Toronto NYC transition. The story makes very limited logical sense. There was a chance that this movie could go full camp when Jackie Chan starts doing James Brown. However this is more sad than funny.

As this is not the best action movie and not the best Jackie Chan movie either, it does have some positive sides to this movie also. The plot seems to be original as a taxi driver gets a job driving a limo for a millionaire guy. After an accident, the Jackie Chan character finds himself in his special tuxedo that the millionaire guy wore. That tuxedo has special powers and so the plot goes. There were a few good action scenes in The Tuxedo and some humor as well but maybe this movie could of used some better dialogue script in it. This movie does also come as just another Jackie Chan type clone of a film where he does about the same stunts he does in all his other movies.

Taxi Driver Jimmy Tong (Jackie Chan) is given the job of chauffeur to smooth secret agent Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs), but after a bomb blast almost kills Devlin, Jimmy enters the world of espionage posing as his boss. With the help of sexy scientist Del Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and the use of Devlin's top secret, gadget laden tuxedo, Jimmy tries to defeat Dietrich Banning, a maniac plotting to poison America's reservoirs.I've been promising to show my 8-year-old son something from my kung fu collection for quite some time now, but due to the high level of violence in most of my martial arts DVDs, the majority were not really suitable; in the end, I gave him the choice between two Jackie Chan films: Twin Dragons or The Tuxedo. Unfortunately, he chose the latter, one of the Jackie's more recent films which I had avoided so far thanks to its being mainstream Hollywood fare aimed at a family audience. Still, I was willing to give it a go since it co-starred Jennifer Love Hewitt, whose looks and magnificent cleavage make even the lamest movies easier to endure.As I expected, this film features very little in the way of decent action or story: the plot is awful, the comedy weak, the fight scenes far too reliant on special effects and wire work, and Peter Stormare and Debi Mazar are totally wasted in a throwaway roles. As I had suspected, curvacious Jennifer Love Hewitt is easily the breast thing... err, I mean the best thing about the whole rather sorry affair.I rate The Tuxedo a miserable 2/10, plus a generous extra pair of points for JLH's extra-generous pair of points.