Shanghai Noon Review

by Bill Hedrick

Well, I got to see this the other night, and I think it's Jackie's best overall movie that I've seen. The key word is "overall" The fight scenes are OK, no eyeball popping sequences. Someone commented that they thought that the producers were trying to keep Jackie from killing himself, and the director has said that himself. The fight scenes need to be de-emphasized as Jackie gets older, also to follow the Schwarzenegger model, Jackie needs to broaden his appeal.

The failures I always find in Jackie's HK movies are that the humor doesn't always cross cultural borders and that the stories seem disjointed at best or simply filler to separate the fights. Rush Hour tried to fix these with mixed success. Shanghai Noon is a more complete success. His American foil (Owen Wilson) is quite entertaining in his own right. You never think when he's up there alone, "Ok, where's Jackie?" Lucy Liu is much better than her critics say, and the supporting cast is equally strong.

There are lots of laugh out loud lines, most even funnier than the trailer! The story is good, but it has a few problems, mostly editing. For instance the Indians appear and disappear with little reason, other than showing up to save our heroes. Also isn't Jackie's character married to the Indian chief's daughter? Also there is a blatant deus ex machina near the end. But the story does work and is fairly compelling, you are at least as interested in the story as you are the fights!

On a general movie rating, a solid 3 1/2 beakers On the Jackie scale an enthusiastic 4 1/2!

Shanghai Noon

Four out of Five Beakers

There are lots of laugh out loud lines, most even funnier than the trailer!