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Your Gateway to Music and More from a Christian Perspective Slow down as you approach the gate, and have your change ready.... |
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Around The World In 80 Days_ Stars: Jackie Chan, Steve Coogan, Cecile DeFrance, Jim Broadbent, Ewen Bremner, Ian McNeice, and Karen Mok Director: Frank Coraci Scriptwriters: David N. Titcher, David Benullo and David Goldstein (adapted from the novel by Jules Verne) Music: Trevor Jones Buena Vista Running Time: 124 minutes Rating: PG A better title would have been Jackie Chan Goes Around The World. Where is a David Niven when you need him? This version of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days combines mayhem with over-acting, dialogue screaming and pratfalls. The sound you hear in the distance is Jules Verne rolling over in his grave. Chan does what he does best and that is choreographing and performing stunts. His sunny personality is likeable, but unfortunately, he is saddled with Steve Coogan (24 Hour Party People) playing Phileas Fogg whose on-camera presence consists of staring somewhere other than at the camera while rambling on and on. Cecile DeFrance as the female part of the traveling trio is so consistently perky she deserves to have a pie thrown at her every once in awhile. The basic story has Coogan as the eccentric inventor Phileas Fogg in London about 1890. Sometimes his Rube Goldberg creations work and sometimes they cause mayhem. Fogg wants to be recognized by the Royal Academy of Science and is badgered into a bet with Lord Kelvin (Jim Broadbent). If Fogg can go around the world in 80 days, he will become Head of Science and if not, Lord Kelvin can shut Fogg up forever. Into this mix comes Jackie Chan as a person trying to retrieve a stolen jade idol from his Chinese village. Chan hires on as Fogg’s valet to secretly return home. They meet Cecile DeFrance at an art show (don’t ask) and against their better judgement (women’s rights and all that) she joins them. The travel graphics are what make the film interesting and bring the audience into each country from London on the Orient Express across Europe then into China, across the Pacific and into San Francisco, then the American West. Various actors offer cameo performances, including Luke and Owen Wilson, Kathy Bates, John Cleese, Arnold Schwarzenegger (this film will not help his political career) and Rob Schneider. Jim Broadbent is the shouting villain, who surely must have been hoarse by the end of filming. Around the World in 80 Days drags between fight scenes because that all it has going for it. The dialogue is predictable, the actors are monotones and the lack of chemistry between Chan and Coogan is painfully apparent. Jackie Chan’s best action scenes are one in his Chinese village and around the statuary that will become the Statue of Liberty. Other action scenes pad the film to over two hours such as when Chan has endless collisions with buildings and statues while hanging onto a rope pulled by a hot air balloon. Finally, window by window, with an incident at each window, he makes the balloon basket. By that time, who cares? James Bond fans, however, take note: Karen Mok makes an excellent villainess. Copyright 2004 Marie Asner Submitted 6/20/04
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