`Shanghai Noon’ dims Jackie Chan’s talent

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In theaters

SHANGHAI NOON. Directed by Tom Dey. Written by Alfred Dough and Miles Millar. Running time: 110 minutes. Rated PG-13.

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.

Indeed, 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 very 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 — and I’m a huge fan — 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

On video

EYE OF THE BEHOLDER. Written and directed by Stephan Elliott, based on the novel by Marc Behm. Running time: 102 minutes. Rated R.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then so is trash, which is precisely what one beholds for nearly two hours during Stephan Elliott’s painfully dull, inept and ridiculous thriller, “Eye of the Beholder.”

This film has all the vision of a blinded Cyclops, all the flash of a burlap bag, all the cool sophistication of a worn-out femme fatale.

It’s a pillaging Hun that references a wealth of other films, including Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” and “Rear Window,” Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Conversation,” Michael Powell’s “Peeping Tom,” Brian De Palma’s “Obsession” and Luc Besson’s “La Femme Nikita.”

But a crime has been committed here and that crime, as far as audiences are concerned, is dire: Elliott completely misses what made these other films work — a strong, literate script charged with interesting, fully developed and believable characters.

Unfortunately, nothing in “Beholder” is interesting, nothing is developed, nothing is believable. As directed by Elliott, whose 1994 Academy Award-winning “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” was a knockout, “Beholder” is an utter failure, a film that confounds from start to finish with its muddled script and sheer lack of understanding of what works in a thriller — and what doesn’t.

The film stars Ashley Judd as Joanna Eris, a wig-wearing psycho who murders her lovers for reasons that are never made clear. Did they somehow cross her? Were they lackluster in bed? Did they criticize her poor choice in wigs? Who can say why she kills — certainly not The Eye (Ewan McGregor), a British intelligence agent who literally lives in a belfry and who goes all doe-eyed over Joanna after he witnesses her stabbing her boyfriend to death.

Oh, the charm of it all.

Indeed, instead of exploring who Joanna is or why The Eye falls madly in love with her, the film is more interested in what Joanna wears, what glamorous cities The Eye follows her to, what cliche the script can haul out next.

With k.d. lang on board in a silly, wooden performance as The Eye’s silly, wooden adviser, “Eye of the Beholder” is as bland as milquetoast, a dull, myopic waste of time that collapses on screen like a punctured lung and which never should have been beheld at all.

Grade: F

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, Tuesday and Thursday on WLBZ’s “NEWS CENTER 5:30 Today” and “NEWS CENTER Tonight,” and Saturday and Sunday on NEWS CENTER’s statewide “Morning Report.”

THE VIDEO CORNER

Renting a video? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores.

Man on the Moon C- Snow Falling on Cedars C American Movie A Eye of the Beholder F The End of the Affair B+ Felicia’s Journey B+ Sleepy Hollow B- The World is Not Enough B+ American Beauty A Bringing Out the Dead B- The Straight Story A Anywhere but Here B+ Being John Malkovich C+ Dogma F Galaxy Quest B+ Fight Club B+ Flawless C- Music of the Heart B Tumbleweeds A The Bachelor D+ End of Days C+ The House on Haunted Hill F Mumford A- Stuart Little B- The Insider B+ Superstar B+ Three Kings A- Three to Tango D- Boys Don’t Cry A For Love of the Game B The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Ark C- The Phantom Menace B Jakob the Liar D Last Night B-