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MOVIE REVIEW

The Tuxedo

MPA Rating: PG-13-Rating (MPA) 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:
Jackie Chan in “The Tuxedo”
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
Distributor: Dreamworks. Trademark logo.
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.


Viewer CommentsSend your comments
Neutral
Neutral—This film started off with a great and somewhat original premise… Chan takes the humorous elements of Chinese street mimes and overlays them onto fighting and action sequences so that at least one fighter in every scene becomes a “clown” fighter who is the butt-end of visual jokes. And sometimes, that butt-end is Chan himself.) …Take this entire film concept one step further and engineer it as a full-blown, good-natured, comical salute to the entire James Bond mythos, and you have the makings of what SHOULD have been a good film.

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]
Eileen A. Sheehan, age 36
Negative
Negative—My overall impression of this movie was that it was a waste of time. Parts of it are funny but it is just another spy movie spoof. The romance was unbelievable with the two characters. I did not appreciate the sexuality which reminded me of Austin Powers. At least we expect this with Powers but with Chan it is simply ridiculous. My college age friends and I all agreed that this movie was just plain stupid and morally wrong.
My Ratings: [Average / 2]
Jessica, age 21
Negative—This was one of the worst movies I have seen. Jackie Chan is usually a lot better than this. Even the stunts were lacking. One scene that was ridiculously bad was an oversexed female trying to seduce the hero. This is meant to be funny, but a) It was not funny. b) She was not sexy. I regret wasting money on this. I recommend no one waste time or money seeing this. The only good thing I can say is the good guys triumph in the end. That’s always a good moral affirmation. I just wish the movie would have been shorter.
My Ratings: [Average / 1]
Mark L. Gilliam, age 40
Movie Critics
…Sexually related dialogue and humor are present in various scenes, and women are seen in scanty and revealing attire…
ScreenIt!
…4 sexual references, 4 scatological terms, 8 anatomical terms, 11 mild obscenities, 8 religious exclamations…
Kids-in-Mind
Comments from young people
Negative—Although the plot was interesting and well-thought, the repetitive breast-shots kind of ruined it. And besides that, Jackie can do better than what he does in it. It wasn’t a TOTAL waste of money, but I would rather have watched something else.
My Ratings: [Average / 2½]
Joey Huddleston, age 16
Neutral—Okay, I am a pretty big Jackie Chan fan. I loved his other movies …Shanghai Noon, Rush Hour 1 and 2… etc. This movie was not like those at all… One major reason I really fell “in love” with Jackie Chan in the first place, was because he always seemed so innocent in his other movies. I also enjoyed how the other movies had a lot of humor to them… this movie lacked that. Jackie’s part in “The Tuxedo” just didn’t seem to fit the typical character he usually plays. Jennifer Love Hewitt drove me nuts in this film …I just thought she was annoying! Hewitt and Chan as partners in this movie just didn’t have that great of chemistry together… The movie was okay, but I don’t think it was one I really needed to see.
My Ratings: [Average / 2½]
Sarah, age 16
Neutral—This movie can be funny and cute but it has a lot of sexual situations and comments in it. Its not for kids twelve and under. There’s a long scene where Jimmy Tong is pursued by a woman engaged to another guy: she strips her own clothes off and tries to get his off, too. A lot is made of how agent Del Blaine can learn secret information from the enemies by being sexy. The violence isn’t too bad. It mostly martial arts combat—I don’t think any guns were in the movie, except when they fired at paper figures in a shooting gallery. There are some good scenes and funny lines, but its not really worth the ticket price. It’d been better if I had just waited to rent it.
My Ratings: [Good / 3]
Hannah Chen, age 15
Negative—First of all I am a HUGE Jackie Chan/martial arts fan. (i am even in kung fu). I heard a lot of stupid stuff about this movie but I love Jackie Chan so I had to see it. there was soooooo much sex talk that it was disgusting. I have seen tons of jackie movies and loved all of them this was the first I didn’t like. I was very disgusted but glad that it wasn’t jackie doing the sick stuff. Even in a scene where a women wanted to have sex with him he didn’t want to cuz he knew it wasn’t right.

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.
My Ratings: [Very Offensive / 1½]
Jonny H., age 14