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The Tuxedo is obviously just something to keep Jackie Chan in our collective memory while we're waiting for Shanghai Knights to come out. Why else would any non-institutionalized studio executive greenlight something that plays like a tired rehash of Inspector Gadget (which itself was a tired big-screen version of a television show)? This film is another (hopefully) failed attempt by a money-hungry studio to create a "franchise." It's also another chapter in the never-ending saga of Tinseltown morons coercing Chan into barely watchable drivel where producers refuse to let him kick enough ass or perform his own stunts (Chan's standard outtakes over the closing credits revolve mostly around flubbed lines instead of stunts gone painfully wrong). Note to Hollywood: We're not going to Jackie Chan films because he's the Second Coming of Olivier - we want to watch him go Shanghai-crazy on anyone with a SAG card.
The Tuxedo is the first Hollywood film Chan has made without a charismatic costar (Owen Wilson, Chris Tucker) to carry the movie. Sadly, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Chan's sidekick here, would be more suited to carrying a tray of beer and nachos at Hooters than she is a major motion picture. Ironically, Chan's Jimmy Tong sports a Hooters t-shirt and a soulpatch (making him look much younger than 50) when The Tuxedo opens. Tong is a cabbie trying to work up the nerve to talk to a pretty woman when a fare named Steena (Debi Mazar, The Insider) hops in and, after observing his driving abilities, offers him a job as chauffeur for a very secretive billionaire named Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs, Windtalkers).
Devlin, a sort of freelance 007, bonds with Tong at a fast-food drive-thru but finds himself nearly blown to smithereens a few seconds later. While Devlin begins a long recovery at the hospital, Tong goes back to the mansion to get his boss a change of clothes. This is when he stumbles upon the Tux (Tactical Uniform eXperiment) - a seemingly normal formal ensemble that has the power to turn the person wearing it into a Superman with no physical limits (too bad the suit didn't have an option to help its wearer speak decipherable English, or display some kind of acting ability).
When Tong dons the suit and is mistaken for Devlin by bespectacled lab-rat-turned-CSA-agent Del Blaine (Hewitt, Heartbreakers, in the most unbelievable nerd-turned-spy casting since Denise Richards placed a nuclear physicist in that Bond film), the two partner up to stop an evil water bottler (?!) named Diedrich Banning (Ritchie Coster, The Thomas Crown Affair), who plans on poisoning the country's fresh water supply so everyone will have to drink his product. Meanwhile, Tong is still trying to get used to the Tux. Instead of saying, "Go go gadget tango," he simply scrolls down to "Tango" on his watch. Presto! Tong is now a master tango dancer.
Chan's fans will not be impressed, especially in the unfortunate scene where he sets the watch to "James Brown." Conspiracy theorists will not be impressed with the plot point about poisoning the water. Peter Stormare fans will not be impressed, as he pretty much plays the same role he undertook in Minority Report. Women will not be impressed, especially when Steena and Del go to a CSA shooting gallery to practice in a scene included just so two other agents can stare at their skinny rumps. Speaking of skinny, Hewitt has now become a tiny stick with a ball on the top of it (and two slightly smaller balls just below the head), redefining the term "top-heavy." The mess was directed by television commercial director Kevin Donovan, who makes his feature-film debut.
1:39 - PG-13 for action violence, sexual content and language
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