mr . nice guy is the latest jackie chan film , so you should know what to expect .
a weak plot , terrible dialogue , very little acting ability , but some jaw-dropping action sequences that nearly make the rest of it worthwhile .
however , mr . nice guy lacks the sparkle of jackie’s best efforts , and its weaknesses are more glaring than ever .
jackie chan plays , who else , jackie .
this time out , he’s a famous chef who hosts an australian cooking show .
not that it ever makes a difference in the plot .
there are only two scenes of him cooking .
for the rest of the film , somehow he mutates into jackie chan , supercop .
it never does explain why his character has such superb martial arts skills . . . perhaps he was in the same cooking class as steven seagal in under siege ?
a tv newswoman , diana ( gabrielle fitzpatrick ) , covertly tapes a drug deal involving kingpin giancarlo ( richard norton ) and a local gang of toughs , the demons .
although she only has one camcorder , somehow the result is full of close-ups and multiple angles . . . hmmm ,
shades of broadcast news ? ? ?
anyway , the goons discover diana , and will do anything to recover the tape .
here lies another crucial flaw in the story : doesn’t anyone realize you can copy a tape ?
oh well , no one ever said jackie chan movies had to make sense .
as luck would have it , diana runs across jackie , and , wouldn’t you know it , jackie accidentally ends up with the tape .
this leads to countless chase and/or fight scenes which look like they could have been lifted from rumble in the bronx or nearly any other jackie chan movie .
in a move apparently designed to woo american ( and other english-speaking ) audiences , the film uses english as its primary language .
however , that doesn’t mean an end to the atrocious dubbing that has afflicted jackie’s recent americanized releases .
strangely , many of the characters speaking english are overdubbed with english , and poorly too .
whether this is just a very bad case of looping , an effort to minimize accents , or a simple case of nostalgia , it does achieve the same level of distraction present in all of jackie’s dubbed films .
the plot in mr . nice guy is negligible , merely an excuse to have jackie on the run from various goons .
but even though plots have always been second to the action in jackie’s films , it seems odd that the filmmakers have stuck us with this tired retread .
look , if you have jackie chan playing a chef , why not use that to your advantage ?
watching jackie doing his stuff in a kitchen , beating the bad guys with foodstuffs sounds like the perfect setup for innumerable comic stunts .
the action is a mixed bag here .
there’s really only one no holds barred fight scenes that have become the trademark of jackie’s films .
it takes place in the arbitrary location of a construction site , apparently for the sole reason that there are lots of nifty things lying around that can be useful ala jackie chan .
the action in the film is neither jackie’s best nor worst , but you long for some more inspiration in the scenes .
the film’s gratuitous use of slow motion is distracting .
once or twice , it may be useful to highlight a spectacular stunt sequence .
but to slo-mo jackie running ?
either this is a nod to the six-million dollar man , or a pathetic attempt to disguise the fact that jackie may be slowing down .
if you’ve seen all of jackie’s films and are in need of another fix , go ahead and see mr . nice guy .
however , if you’re just in the mood for some good action , you’d be better off hitting the video store for some of his better work , such as supercop .