The Tuxedo (2002)

hyped garbage

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Blistering performances.

Taxi Driver Jimmy Tong (Jackie Chan) is given the job of chauffeur to smooth secret agent Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs), but after a bomb blast almost kills Devlin, Jimmy enters the world of espionage posing as his boss. With the help of sexy scientist Del Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt) and the use of Devlin's top secret, gadget laden tuxedo, Jimmy tries to defeat Dietrich Banning, a maniac plotting to poison America's reservoirs.I've been promising to show my 8-year-old son something from my kung fu collection for quite some time now, but due to the high level of violence in most of my martial arts DVDs, the majority were not really suitable; in the end, I gave him the choice between two Jackie Chan films: Twin Dragons or The Tuxedo. Unfortunately, he chose the latter, one of the Jackie's more recent films which I had avoided so far thanks to its being mainstream Hollywood fare aimed at a family audience. Still, I was willing to give it a go since it co-starred Jennifer Love Hewitt, whose looks and magnificent cleavage make even the lamest movies easier to endure.As I expected, this film features very little in the way of decent action or story: the plot is awful, the comedy weak, the fight scenes far too reliant on special effects and wire work, and Peter Stormare and Debi Mazar are totally wasted in a throwaway roles. As I had suspected, curvacious Jennifer Love Hewitt is easily the breast thing... err, I mean the best thing about the whole rather sorry affair.I rate The Tuxedo a miserable 2/10, plus a generous extra pair of points for JLH's extra-generous pair of points.

This movie was simply rubbish. There wasn't anything specific about it, but the whole movie simply seemed to be an attempt to bring Jackie Chan's silliness to the American market. He was a sensation in Hong Kong, and I am quite a fan of many of the movies he made there, but since he moved to the United States, I must admit that he career has nose dived.This movie is about a taxi driver named Jimmy Tong (Jackie Chan) who is hired to drive Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs) around. It turns out that Clark Devlin is a super spy, who is everything that Jimmy would like to be. Jimmy is given the run of Devlin's house, but is told that he must not touch the suit. The suit, it turns out, is a funky spy device that gives the wearer extra-ordinary powers. As you can imagine, Delvin gets incapacitated and Jimmy Tong has to come to the rescue.I found the movie predictable, and very unfunny, but then again I probably have a different sense of humour to a lot of people. However, even with the language barrier I found Chan's Hong Kong movies much funnier and much more entertaining, that the current lot that he is serving up.

I personally think The Medallion is worse than the Tuxedo, but the thing is The Tuxedo I was left cold by. Jackie Chan is always watchable, and he is one of the best things of this mediocre effort having a lot of charisma and doing what he can do. Jason Issacs also gives a strong performance, the first twenty minutes are actually great, the Macguffin is fun and the film does look good and doesn't look as though it was edited on a bacon slicer.However, despite these good things, The Tuxedo does fall downhill quickly. The storytelling on the whole is incredibly clunky complete with cardboard cut-outs for characters, poor dialogue, stunts that suffer from a lack of energy and unnecessary(not to mention sloppy) CGI effects that miss the point of everything Chan stands for. The film is badly paced, with a lot of rushed and slow spots that dispand from any more believability the film could have had, and the direction is bland. While Chan and Issacs are good, Jennifer Love-Hewitt is terrible. She in general is not a great actress but she is one with warmth and endearment, but with such a poorly written and undercooked role she tries way too hard.Overall, not Chan's worst, but rather weak. 4/10 Bethany Cox

Strangely, it's the moments before and after the eponymous tuxedo appears where the film is most successful. The first act is hugely enjoyable in fact; consistently laugh-out-loud funny. Jason Isaacs makes a strong impression as the Bond-like secret agent who employs Jackie Chan as his driver. In fact, he bears a strong resemblance to how Ian Fleming imagined Bond in the novels and seeing him in such a role makes you wonder if he wouldn't have been a good choice for the role after Pierce Brosnan left.But I digress. Once Chan slips on Isaacs' super-tux things get very silly, but not in a good way. It seems to be aimed squarely at the younger crowd, yet there is a nasty level of detail in a couple of horror moments that are probably unsuitable for young kiddies.The special effects are poor but not too distracting, the performances are about right for the target audience but adults may find them grating. Jennifer Love Hewitt does the best work, throwing herself into her role with aplomb, even if at times it appears she's trying too hard. Her chemistry with Chan is adequate - again, you have to bear in mind this is a kid's film - although Chan lacks his usual charm.In short it's not as dreadful as you may have heard. Kids won't think it's the best film they've ever seen, but will probably enjoy it even if they find the plot challenging, but that's about all it has going for it.