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The humor is weak, the plot line is dumb. And Jackie Chan needs to learn English. But boy, can he whip those bad guys.
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 6, 2003
Shanghai Knights is so dumb that even the occasional subtitles are in big block letters for the reading impaired. Then characters whose conversation needed interpreting illogically begin speaking English, so nobody needs to read much.
Listening to the screenplay's weak humor is taxing enough.
Anything starring Jackie Chan these days should be a silent movie. The only decent quality about Shanghai Knights is that the 48-year-old martial arts ace shows off more of his comical butt-kicking ballets than in the Rush Hour flicks or The Tuxedo. Talking with his fists and feet, Chan speaks volumes. If only his timing with dialogue could catch up.
Shanghai Knights is a sequel to the surprisingly limber Western spoof Shanghai Noon, starring Chan as a Chinese palace guard sent to America to find a kidnapped princess. In that film, Chan was content to let co-star Owen Wilson handle the verbal comedy, and he responded with an amusingly anachronistic performance, a surfer-dude gunslinger winking at the audience with every one-liner.
Someone along the way -- Wilson? Chris Tucker? -- convinced Chan he's funny in the traditional sense of snappy patter. He isn't. Comedy requires an awareness of what you're saying and Chan, bless his heart, hasn't mastered English. Being prompted on pronunciations before each scene isn't enough preparation to make jokes work. Chan is cute when he flubs lines, but cute can't sustain a two-hour movie.
This time, Chon Wang (Chan) is a Nevada sheriff informed his estranged father in China has been murdered. He bolts for New York to reunite with Roy O'Bannon (Wilson), whose exaggerated exploits make him a pulp-novel hero. The plot devices of the first film, the princess and a treasure, are casually explained away. Chon and Roy travel to London because that's where Chon's sister Lin (Fann Wong) tracked the killer.
That isn't enough to base a movie upon, so screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar concoct a ragged-out Ragtime motif with famous figures such as Jack the Ripper, Queen Victoria and Arthur Conan Doyle fitfully crossing paths with the heroes. The villain (Aidan Gillen) is dull, the Doyle character (Tom Fisher) is a limpid running gag and the royal conspiracy is just an excuse to blast a few hundred rounds of ammunition.
Meanwhile Wilson gets more screen time, thanks to his first film success, and more is definitely less. This is the first time Wilson's puppy-dog appeal and lazy line readings got on my nerves. The out-of-place cultural references -- "I'm in a transitional phase," for example -- become tired jokes long before the obligatory outtakes.
Thankfully, Chan regularly finds reasons and imaginative props to beat up bullies. Being chased by Keystone Kops through a revolving door is a nice touch, and a trampoline-style fight in a marketplace is superbly timed. But who thought it would be funny to place Chon and Roy in a mansion with secret panels and oil painting peep holes? The Three Stooges' estate should sue. Yuck, yuck, yuck.
Grade: C-
Director: David Dobkin
Cast: Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, Fann Wong, Aidan Gillen, Tom Fisher, Aaron Johnson, Gemma Jones
Screenplay: Alfred Gough, Miles Millar
Rating: PG-13; violence, sexual situations, brief profanity
Running time: 114 min.