The Tuxedo (2002

 

Why The Tuxedo (2002) Is An Absolute Insult To Jackie Chan

​Look, I’ll start by saying what we all know to be true: Jackie Chan is a living, breathing legend. The man is a real-life superhero who has fractured his own bones, jumped out of helicopters, and literally put his body on the line for decades to give us some of the greatest cinema in history. I have nothing but absolute admiration for his grit.

​Which is exactly why The Tuxedo makes me want to throw my remote control straight through the telly.

​Hollywood took a martial arts icon and decided: "Hey, you know what Jackie needs? A magic suit made of fabric that does all the fighting for him using terrible 2002 computer graphics." It is an absolute joke.

​Unbelievable, Even For A Comedy

​I know, I know—it’s not supposed to be a serious documentary. It’s a sci-fi comedy. But there is a very fine line between "silly fiction" and writing that is so fundamentally lazy and unbelievable that it insults your intelligence.

​We are supposed to buy into the premise that a thin layer of cloth—no matter what kind of fictional "nanofibers" they want to pretend are in it—can suddenly turn a regular cab driver into a superhuman. Think about the basic physics here for two seconds. If a suit forced a normal human body to kick and flip at three hundred miles an hour, your hips and knees would literally snap out of their sockets on the very first bounce! It pushes past the point of comedy and just becomes a total crap movie.

​The Verdict

​The chemistry between Jackie and Jennifer Love Hewitt is practically nonexistent, the villain's plan involves genetically modified water bugs (yes, really), and the wire-work completely strips away the fluid, prop-heavy artistry that makes Jackie so special to watch.

​I hate to diss a legend, but Jackie Chan absolutely should have walked away from this one. It’s cheap, it's lazy, and it treats a martial arts master like a digital prop. Save yourself the headache and go watch Rush Hour or Police Story instead.

​My Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars. It’s a cheap, threadbare suit.