The opening scene in "The Tuxedo" includes a lingering shot of an animal relieving itself into a stream that's being used as a source for bottled water.
Believe it or not, things go downhill from there.
Not that most Jackie Chan vehicles are models for cinematic good taste — despite their success, the "Rush Hour" movies were surprisingly racist. But this lame action-comedy is surely the worst movie he's made in the States, and it ranks up there with the worst he's ever done.
Even if you disregard all the cheap toilet humor and sex jokes — and considering how many of the latter there are, that may be impossible — the film still has one huge problem: It doesn't let Chan do what he does best, which is fight.
He stars as Jimmy Tong, a mild-mannered New York City cab driver who is chosen to become the driver for secret agent Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs). Though his new boss generally disregards all regulations, he has one simple instruction for Jimmy: never touch his tuxedo.
But when Devlin is seriously injured in an assassination attempt, he reconsiders, telling Jimmy to put on the tux — which turns out to be an electronic supersuit that grants its wearer skills and abilities beyond those of normal men.
Consequently, he's mistaken for Devlin by Del Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt), an overeager junior agent who doesn't realize that he's an impostor (she's never met her new partner).
Together, the two of them are supposed to investigate and infiltrate the operations of Diedrich Banning (Richie Coster), an evil, bottled-water corporation exec with plans of world domination.
Frankly, it's not worth going into the plot further, save to say that it's an excuse for excruciatingly bad slapstick and for showing Hewitt's cleavage.
First-time director Kevin Donovan has no idea how to stage or shoot fight scenes, and the script-by-committee is no help. (To give you an idea of how inept the film is, there's probably more footage of Chan driving a taxi than there is of him in combat.)
And while Chan still has his charm to fall back on, it's embarrassing to see him stuck with a co-star like Hewitt, whose comedic instincts are virtually nonexistent.
"The Tuxedo" is rated PG-13 for nonstop action violence (martial-arts combat, explosive mayhem, vehicular and violence against women), crude humor involving sexual and other bodily functions, scattered use of profanity and brief gore. Running time: 99 minutes.
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