Dietrich Banning (Ritchie Coster) is the owner of a bottled water company. By infecting a swarm of water strider insects with a strain of bacteria that causes water to dehydrate rather than rehydrate the drinker and letting them loose, he plans to render all the water in the world undrinkable except his own, thus increasing its value.
Meanwhile...
Jimmy Tong (
Jackie Chan) is a New York taxi driver. After escorting a mysterious woman to her destination at breakneck speed, she recruits him to be the chauffeur of
James Bond Expy Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs), who is hot on Banning's trail. After an attempt on Devlin's life lands him in a hospital, he tells Jimmy to
take his tuxedo and
stand-in for him. Jimmy promptly finds that Devlin's tuxedo is a $2 billion dollar
power suit that allows the wearer to do kung-fu,
walk on walls and ceilings, and dance really well (among other things). He and CSA agent Del Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt), who presumes him to be Devlin and is thus more than a little confused at his ineptitude, team up to bring Banning down.
Alas, what this means is that this movie, instead of showcasing Chan's personal skills and stuntwork, showcases a whole lot of
more-or-less unimpressive special effects pertaining to the suit's abilities. On the rare occasions that some actual stuntwork is done, it's performed not by Chan but by as many as 7 stand-ins. Whereas in other Chan films the
Hilarious Outtakes during the end credits showed failed stunts, the ones in this film show mucked-up dialogue.
This film provides examples of:
- As Himself: James Brown!
- Badass Driver: Jimmy.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Jimmy and Del.
- Big Bad: Banning.
- Big Damn Heroes: Parodied.
Del: "This is the part where 50 CSA agents come storming in to haul you, your pretentious accent and those jackass sideburns to prison, where they only serve
HIGHLY! CHLORINATED! TAPWATER!!"
(
instead, Banning's thugs drag Jimmy in after his rescue failed)
- Brick Joke: The shoulder-grab-reversal gimmick is closer to this than Chekhov's Gun.
- Bullet Proof Fashion Plate: Parodied.
- Casual Danger Dialog: when Jimmy's taxi screams across the city with Debi Mazar in the back seat, still able to apply her makeup.
- Ceiling Cling / Wall Crawl: Interestingly; after Jimmy discovers these abilities when trying on the tux for the first time, he hardly uses them afterwards.
- Chekhov's Gun: Among other things, the tuxedo automatically lights other people's cigarettes. Jimmy activates this function when Banning wears the tuxedo to keep himself from getting strangled to death.
- Clothes Make the Superman: The whole point.
- Comically Small Bribe: Jimmy attempts to get himself and Del into a club with seven bucks.
- Cool Clear Water: Parodied. Opens with a shot of a pure mountain stream, and then shows a deer urinating in it.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Banning.
- Did Not Do the Research: As pointed out by Roger Ebert, there are no species of water strider that possess queens.
- Fanservice: from Jennifer Love Hewitt, with Debi Mazar thrown in for good measure.
- Fridge Horror / Fridge Logic: If Banning's Evil Plan had actually succeeded (and worked as described), it would shortly lead to the extinction of most life on Earth. Guess he Didn't Think This Through.
1. Turn all water on the planet into
ice-nine, er, a dessicant.
2. ???
3. PROFIT!
- Hey, It's That Guy!: Lucius Malfoy is not-James Bond.
- IKEA Weaponry: Has a sequence where Jackie Chan's character must assemble a rifle used to plant a listening device at long distance. Arguably justifies the 'use right away' scope due to the nature of his high tech tuxedo. Also the fact that the scope itself seems to be high tech as well, since it appears to have something like an auto targeting system intended for fatal hits (when planting bugs, it takes down a Mook with a headshot).
- Kung-Shui: When he first tries the tux on, he activates "demolition mode" and destroys Delvin's mansion.
- One-Scene Wonder: Colin Mochrie as the art museum owner. Seeing him not as over-the-top, but particularly douchey is a weird change from what he's normally known for, being the zany nice guy on Whose Line.
- Black Comedy Rape: the scene where Banning's girlfriend tries to get into Jimmy's pants.
- Red Herring: The deer peeing at the beginning has no importance to the plot, despite considerable focus on the water making its way from the stream to the bottling plant during the opening credits.
- Simpleton Voice: Lampshaded. Hewitt does a perfect impression of Banning's bimbo girlfriend's voice.
- Theme Naming: Just as "Chon Wang" in Shanghai Noon was intended to sound like John Wayne, "Jimmy Tong" was apparently just to give Jackie the line "Tong... James Tong."
- Third-Person Person: Lampshaded. When Jimmy sees a case of insects, he inadvertently remarks "Mr. Devlin liked insects too", and tries to remedy this slip by claiming that "I like to refer to myself in the third person". Del counters thus: "Del Blaine thinks you're an idiot."
- Thrown from the Zeppelin: Banning calls in an underling who criticizes his scheme and feeds him some of the dehydrating water, causing him to shrivel up and turn to dust. Also counts as Nightmare Fuel and Body Horror.
- Tuxedo and Martini: Obviously.
- Water Source Tampering: Banning's plan.
- With My Hands Tied: At one point, he ends up wearing only the pants of the tux and activates "pants only combat". Later, he fights off a bunch of mooks from all directions while keeping the queen water strider from escaping by keeping it in a glass that's pressed up against Del's face.
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