The Tuxedo
for action violence, sexual content and language.
Reviewed by: Douglas M. Downs
CONTRIBUTOR
| Moral Rating: | Average |
| Moviemaking Quality: |
|
| Primary Audience: | Teens Adults |
| Genre: | Comedy / Action |
| Length: | |
| Year of Release: | 2002 |
| USA Release: |
| Featuring | Jackie Chan, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jason Isaacs, Ritchie Coster, Debi Mazar |
| Director |
Kevin Donovan |
| Producer | John H. Williams, Adam Schroeder, Walter F. Parkes, Brian Gersh |
| Distributor |
 DreamWorks Pictures, aka DreamWorks Studios, a production label of Amblin Partners |
There are times when a tuxedo can bring a sense of style and grace to an event. I have witnessed teary-eyed parent taking snapshots before their child heads off to the high school prom. I have officiated at several weddings and I love that moment of reverent innocence when a groom awaits the bride’s journey down the aisle.
I will tell you the truth right up front… a tuxedo does nothing for this latest film by Jackie Chan. It’s another attempt to poke fun at James Bond, but in so many ways this movie fails to deliver the goods. It’s sadly just as boring and silly as the awful remake of “The Avengers”. While Jackie Chan is without a doubt a talented martial arts actor, needing no special effects to showcase his abilities, the exaggerated sexual innuendos (in the tradition of “Austin Powers”) blackens “The Tuxedo”. The script merely makes the actual tuxedo the star and reduces most of the dialog, barely bridging tuxedo and talent to accentuate the special effects.
Our story opens with Jimmy Tong (Jackie Chan) as a cab driver challenged to show off his driving skills while undergoing a job interview by super spy Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs). Jimmy’s boss is incapacitated and he is instructed to wear a special tux that he had previously admired. Quicker than you can say “Inspector Gadget,” the tux takes on its own superpower identity. The accessory watch can make these clothes do amazing things! Everything but draw us into a good movie, that is.
Delilah Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt) is assigned by the agency to assist Clark Devlin, whom she has never met and is therefore innocent to the fact that Jimmy Tong has assumed Clark’s identity. Our villain is Diedrich Banning (Ritchie Coster), a water baron who deviously plans to infect the world’s water supply so that everyone must buy water from him (I guess he forgot that we can still drink milk, juice, etc.). He is helped along by the evil scientist (Peter Stormare, who was much better in “Minority Report”) to devise a delivery system with a few bugs in it (pun intended). Can our clumsy duo prevent the world from being forced to buy just one brand of bottled water? I guess this could be a scary thought to those who insist that their brand of water is the best.
Personally, I think the film would have been funnier if a younger more unsuspecting actor would have stumbled into the tux. If you are going to make fun of the innuendos in a Bond film, then why not someone who is naive and just doesn’t get it? I will warn you that some innuendos present includes the themes of homosexuality and voyeurism. My recommendation is to skip this one and hope that the 48-year-old Jackie Chan can find better work.
[Average / 2]
[Average / 1]
[Average / 2½]
[Average / 2½]
[Good / 3]
I do not recommend this movie to any one not even to the biggest Jackie Chan (if there isn’t one bigger then me.jk) but as a christian I had a hard time enjoying this movie with all the sex talk. half way through the movie all I looked forward to is the outtakes.
[Very Offensive / 1½]
Unfortunately, this is NOT a good film. It’s also not a BAD film either, just a passable one… Jennifer Love Hewitt, while a fine actress in her own right, has been regrettably saddled here with a badly written character in this substandard script. In fact, my worst complaint is Hewitt’s character and her love interest with Chan’s, and she is far too pivotal of a character to have been so negligently ill-written. Chan’s presence and his many fight scenes make this film pleasurable to watch, but Hewitt’s character is an annoyance to my sensibilities and a detraction from the script, on par with the “Scourge of Jarr-Jarr” (I inwardly cheered when she exited a scene!)
…If you are just looking for a movie in general, you might want to save this one for when it comes out on video, and even then, don’t make it a priority. As for moral warnings in my review, the film has mild profanity. Two male spies are shown jokingly using spy cameras to focus on women’s body parts, overall the film aggrandizes the philosophy of men who habitually seduce women (in the tradition of James Bond), and it includes a scene where Chan is sexually attacked in a way that is supposed to be comical by a sexually aggressive (and proudly kinky) woman in her hotel room. The spy camera scene as well as the hotel room scene I find unnecessary and some parents may want to fast-forward the video through them.
The violence itself is merely comical and not actually disturbing, but perhaps little children should not be shown these violent scenes if they are prone to copying the violence (in a spirit of either anger or humor, the copying of such violence should never be encourage in children).
My Ratings: [Average / 2]