The Tuxedo

As Jackie Chan gets older and less able to do amazing stunts and killer kung fu sequences, his movies' paper-thin plots have started to matter much more. This time Chan is a chauffeur to a rich, suave secret agent (Jason Isaacs) who must take his boss's place after an accident. Aided by the man's super-high-tech go-go-gadget tuxedo--which can make him dance like James Brown, run like Steve Austin and fight like, well, Jackie Chan--he's assigned to stop a megalomaniacal bottled water mogul (huh?) planning to poison the world's reservoirs. Jennifer Love Hewitt costars as a bubbly, buxom, brainy lab technician who is the only person smart enough to counter the bad guy's diabolical plan. Yeah, right. While an endless assault of embarrassingly ham-fisted sex jokes reek of a script rewrite, The Tuxedo is not without its fun moments, thanks to Chan's charm and silent-film-inspired shtick. But without his trademark "wow" stunts there's little to distract a viewer from the sheer (in both senses of the word) idiocy of this movie's inane story. Not a necessary purchase. [Note: DVD extras include an HBO First Look 13-minute “Tailor Made for Jackie Chan” featurette, nine deleted scenes, three extended scenes, eight minutes of outtakes and bloopers, text cast and filmmaker bios, text production notes, and a trailer. Bottom line: a solid extras package--thanks to the bloopers--for a less-than-sterling film.] (R. Blackwelder)