The Accidental Spy Movie Review

Jackie Chan, bless his 48-year-old heart, has finally slowed down his breakneck pace of filmmaking, which would sometimes reach up to five chopsocky flicks in a year.

Aside from Rush Hour 2, The Accidental Spy is Chan's only film from 2001, and while the star is slowing down, so are his films. The tepid Rush Hour series notwithstanding, Chan's action scenes are a little less extreme than in the past, with longer exposition sequences between them, and with fewer gags to break the tedium. Squirting lotion in a bad guy's face is about as funny as it gets here.

Otherwise, the plot is apparently the same as in his upcoming The Tuxedo -- otherwise roughly the same movie except that it has Jennifer Love Hewitt in it -- with Chan's mild-mannered exercise equipment salesman being sucked into a web of intrigue. Not a terribly intriguing web of intrigue, but a couple of strands of web nonetheless. Dubbed in English, die-hard Chan fans may love the movie's adherance to the long-held tenets of Chan's oeuvre, but casual viewers are better advised to look at Chan's more classic work instead.

Aka Te wu mi cheng.