Why the latest Jackie Chan movie is called "Around the World in 80 Days" is a mystery. Better to call it "Lau Xing and the Jade Buddha."

By Kirk Honeycutt

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) -

Any resemblance between Jules Verne's marvelous science fiction novel or Mike Todd's enjoyable 1956 movie is pure happenstance. This is simply a Jackie Chan movie pitched to youngsters who enjoy slapstick fights and goofy caricatures. When Verne's hero, stalwart British sporting gentleman Phileas Fogg, gets turned into a second banana to his French valet played by Chan, and Indian Princess Aouda and her dramatic rescue by Fogg get replaced by a French hat-check girl, you know the filmmakers have pretty much chucked old Jules out the window.

Which would be all right if the all-David writing team of David Titcher, David Benullo and David Goldstein sticks to any coherent story or director Frank Coraci ("The Waterboy") establishes a consistent tone. Instead, the film meanders between lackluster fights and overly broad comedy, some embarrassingly bad. This "Around the World" will have a tough time appealing to general audiences because the comedy is juvenile and the action largely uninspired.

In this incarnation, Fogg (British TV comedy vet Steve Coogan) is a turn-of-the-century inventor of "future retro" gadgets. Fogg makes a bet that he can circumnavigate the world in 80 days with the head of the Royal Academy of Science (Jim Broadbent). This serves as mere backdrop to the story of Lau Xing (Chan), who burgles the Bank of England to re-acquire a jade Buddha stolen from his village by a gang of bandits led by General Fang (actress-singer Karen Joy Morris).

Lau hitches a ride with Fogg, figuring this will be his quickest way home. That Fogg, supposedly one of the brainiest men in Britain, would believe Chan to be a French valet is fairly consistent with the lackadaisical style of the screenplay. Another addition to the group picked up in Paris is Monique (pert Cecile de France), who figures a world tour will help her nascent artistic career.

Throughout the feeble adventures, the script lacks the connective tissue that explain how a character stranded in China suddenly materializes in San Francisco or how, having missed a boat in New York, the intrepid heroes suddenly wind up on that very same boat sailing for England. Similarly, characters change from imbecile to clever depending on a particular sequence's needs. The key problem is this: If you are going to rewrite one of the most imaginative adventure novelists ever, you cannot substitute such lame situations and tedious characters as the three Davids do.

Todd coined the expression "cameo" to describe the more than 40 brief appearances by stars and celebrities of the day in his "Around the World." Here the success of these cameos is in inverse relationship to the amount of screen time affording the celebrity. Richard Branson turning up as a guy tending a hot-air balloon is worth a chuckle. Arnold Schwarzenegger as a Turkish prince in an extended and unnecessary sequence is borderline grotesque. Seldom has an actor looked more in need of a career change.

The movie contains one inventive sequence: A fight breaks out at an Impressionists exhibition. As Chan defends himself against a horde of Chinese assassins amid paint buckets, a canvas behind him gets pummeled and spattered until -- voila! -- it becomes an Impressionist painting. Alas, this kind of wit swiftly evaporates. Mostly, the film traffics in cheap sets -- an Indian sequence created in Thailand compares unfavorably with the sets in Bob Hope/Bing Crosby road pictures -- to seriously awful acting from usually decent performers such as Broadbent and Ewen Bremner.

De France has plenty of charm and at times makes you forget the awful dialogue and lame bits. Coogan plays a British twit who falls somewhere between Hugh Grant and Peter Cook. Chan works hard, but this is one of his least inspired performances.

Production values overall are poor. The constant swing between real and fake sets establishes no tone for the comedy. The music begins with a theme reminiscent of John Williams' "Star Wars" and concludes with the Walt Disney Co. inserting "It's a Small World" by the Baha Men over the end titles. Ouch! Visual effects by Rhythm & Hues and Jim Henson's Creature Shop are uneven.

Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media.

Cast:
Passepartot/Lau Xing: Jackie Chan;
Phileas Fogg: Steve Coogan;
Lord Kelvin: Jim Broadbent;
Prince Hapi: Arnold Schwarzenegger;
Monique La Roche: Cecile de France;
Inspector Fox: Ewen Bremner;
General Fang: Karen Joy Morris;
Hobo: Rob Schneider;
Queen Victoria: Kathy Bates.

Director: Frank Coraci; Screenwriters: David Titcher, David Benullo, David Goldstein; Based on the novel by: Jules Verne; Producers: Hal Lieberman, Bill Badalato; Executive producers: Jackie Chan, Willie Chan; Solon So, Alex Schwartz, Phyllis Alia; Director of photography: Phil Meheux; Production designer: Perry Andelin Blake; Music: Trevor Jones; Co-producers: Henning Molfenter, Thierry Potok; Costume designer: Anna Sheppard; Editor: Tom Lewis.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter