Around the World in 80 Days: …
Posted by rehearsalformurder on January 15th, 2010

Around the World in 80 Days: Comedy adventure. Starring Jackie Chan,
Steve Coogan and Cecile de France. Directed by Frank Coraci. PG. 105 minutes.
At Bay Areatheaters.)
“Around the World in 80 Days” is a delightful surprise. What could have
been a slapdash remake is a complete re-imagining of the story that uses the
Jules Verne novel and the 1956 Academy Award-winning film of the same name as
a jumping-off point for an energetic and enormously good-natured family movie.
It sounds like 1940s advertising copy to say it, but this picture has a little
of everything — action, romance, adventure, comedy — all held together
by a warm spirit and a smart director’s commitment to keep things moving.
If dissected, the movie can be looked at as a mix of Verne and
boilerplate Jackie Chan, but each element invigorates the other. Once again,
as in “The Medallion” and “Shanghai Knights,” Chan must retrieve and return an
ancient artifact to its rightful location. He’s Lau Xing — going under the
name Passepartout — who joins up with Professor Phileas Fogg as a way of
gaining passage back to his rural Chinese village.
British comedian Steve Coogan, who plays Fogg, is an equal partner with
Chan in the film’s success. As played by Coogan, Fogg is not a smooth dandy or
a man of the world like David Niven in the 1956 film. Rather, he’s a hyper-
sensitive, easily ruffled and hopelessly clumsy scientist, circa 1899 — a
fellow good-looking enough to be a leading man, but far too scattered ever to
figure that out. When he meets Lau Xing, he hires him on the spot to test his
latest device, a horseless carriage, presumably one of the world’s first. He
has the car on a track, but when he gets the speed past 50 mph, the car gets
loose and flies through the London streets.
In another film, particularly another Disney film, this mishap might have
been an occasion for unfocused zaniness, a big commotion presented without
invention. Not here. Here the bit is worked out meticulously and extensively
(as in a Jackie Chan movie). It’s funny. It delivers in a slapstick way, and
it’s the first clue that this picture will not be a phoned-in entertainment.
Fogg’s around-the-world voyage is undertaken as the result of a bet he
makes with the president of the royal science institute, Lord Kelvin, a
supercilious mediocrity played with villainous gusto by Jim Broadbent. The
unsavory nature of the institute’s hierarchy is emphasized in the casting,
which finds some of the most pasty-faced, unhealthy looking actors to play
Kelvin’s underlings. Throughout the subsequent journey, Fogg and Lau Xing have
to keep fighting off Kelvin’s thugs and also the martial arts henchmen of an
evil female war lord (Karen Joy Morris). Fortunately, these fights are never
tiresome, and the movie doesn’t ever quite repeat itself.
One sequence is a little marvel. Fogg and a young woman are hovering some
30 or 40 feet above ground in a hot air balloon, while Lau Xing hangs from a
rope, fighting off the warlord’s men and struggling to climb back into the
basket. The movie finds lively and enjoyable ways to keep the sequence going.
At one point, Chan, hanging from the rope, looks into a woman’s apartment and
sees a fire starting. He jumps in through a window, puts out the fire, then
goes out another window, leaping for and catching the rope, as the balloon
glides by. Cantinflas never had it this difficult.
Monique, an impetuous young artist who meets Fogg and insists that she be
allowed to accompany him, is played by Cecile de France, a charming Belgian
actress who made a strong impression as the lesbian roommate in the French hit
“L’Auberge Espagnole.” She is an important part of the “Around the World”
chemistry, providing a touch of romance and an unexpected dash of shrewd
insolence.
The movie doesn’t need injections of energy, but it gets them anyway from
surprise cameos, and they’re welcome all the same. In one of the better ones,
Gov. Schwarzenegger makes a very funny appearance as Prince Hapi, a lecherous,
narcissistic Turkish sultan. Comedy has always been a strong suit for
Schwarzenegger, but the sight of him here, in a long, curly black wig, is one
for the books. He made the film before running for office. Before making this
film, director Frank Coraci’s best-known credits were for “The Waterboy” and
“The Wedding Singer,” two of the better Adam Sandler vehicles. Still, it’s one
thing for a director to make passable movies with a dead weight, and quite
another for him to be let loose to work with genuinely talented people. Coraci
has given us a film that is not only amusing, but well-acted, and not only
well-acted, but gorgeous. Micha Klein’s animated transitions alone, which are
used to signal each change in location, are wondrous and lovely to behold.
– Advisory: This film contains some mild sex humor.
E-mail Mick LaSalle at mlasalle@sfchronicle.com.
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