Shanghai Noon: Movie Review, DVD Review (2000)

Directed by Tom Dey, written by Alfred Dough and Miles Millar, 110 minutes, rated PG-13.

(Originally published 2000)

Slow on the draw and unsteady in the saddle, Tom Dey’s directorial debut, the not-so-wild-wild-Western “Shanghai Noon,” does to Jackie Chan what Hollywood has done time and again to his foreign counterparts: It ropes his edge, wrestles it to the ground and beats it out of him with sacks of cash.

Just as Mel Gibson, Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle and Antonio Banderas have lost what once made them so special in small, edgy films shot abroad, the same is becoming true for Chan, who joins a growing list of once promising foreign actors who have traded substance and artistry for huge payoffs in safe, formulaic films made in the States.

For Hollywood, the bottom line in all this may be a picture that makes money, but for the actors who have built their careers on interesting, exciting, remarkable work, it’s something akin to death.

Looking back at these actors’ careers, not one of them has been as good as he was before securing his retirement in the States. Gibson hasn’t been nearly as raw, alive and powerful since the Mad Max films; Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlyle haven’t shocked us once since “Trainspotting”; and not since his collaborations with Pedro Almodovar has Banderas had as much to say--or nearly as much soul.

Now moseys in Chan, the Hong Kong action star who broke the U.S. market in 1996’s “Rumble in the Bronx,” struck crossover gold in 1998’s “Rush Hour,” and who obviously isn’t about to look back.

In “Noon,” he’s Chon Wang (get it?), a second-string Chinese imperial guard who comes to America to rescue the kidnapped Princess Pei-Pei (Lucy Liu). Along the way, he meets Roy O’Bannon (Owen Wilson), a klutzy yet likable train robber who’s as incapable of shooting a gun as this script is in getting consistent laughs.

That’s just the problem with “Noon”--long stretches of tepid dialogue undermine the comedy and the eye-popping stunts for which Chan is known.

“Noon” isn’t a bad movie; some moments nicely echo Mel Brooks’ “Blazing Saddles,” and Owen Wilson is a treat. The film just isn’t as good as Chan’s best efforts, especially “Supercop,” “Police Story,” “Project A” and “Operation Condor.”

For fans of Chan, it’s disappointing to find that the hilarious outtakes that always come at the end of his films have actually become better than the film itself. Maybe next time they should just release those.

Grade: C