Movie Review: Bloodrayne

Bloodrayne (2006) 

Directed by Uwe Boll 

Written by Guinevere Turner 

Starring Kristanna Loken, Michael Madsen, Matthew Davis, Billy Zane 

Release Date January 6th, 2006

Published January 5th, 2006 

Critiquing a film directed by Uwe Boll on its filmmaking merits--artistry, narrative, acting--is, as my grandfather might say, "like arguing with a dog about being a dog." An Uwe Boll film is an Uwe Boll film, and no amount of money can turn a Boll film into a real movie. So, in reviewing Boll's Bloodrayne, I attempted to put myself in Mr. Boll's shoes and try to understand what his vision of the film was. This lasted about two minutes before unstoppable giggling set in.

Bloodrayne is possibly Mr. Boll's most amateur and accomplished film at the same time. The movie is riotously unintentionally campy and yet features a stellar cast--well beyond the talent of the director. That these actors are well beneath their parts is a given, but that each manages to look worse than they have ever looked in a film is an Uwe Boll given.

Bloodrayne stars Terminator 3 vixen Kristanna Loken as Rayne, a sideshow circus freak whose talent is that she is burned by water and healed by blood. Rayne is a vampire, sort of. Rayne is the offspring of a vampire--her mother was raped by a powerful vampire named Kagan (Ben Kingsley) and Rayne was the result of the unholy union.

Rayne has the weaknesses and strengths of a vampire but is not technically a vampire, I think. See, here's the thing about an Uwe Boll film, pausing to logically assess why his characters are as they are or do what they do really is not anything Mr. Boll is interested in doing. Thus, we get Rayne who is burned by water--not holy water mind you, just water. Rayne drinks blood for survival and cannot be out in the sun but, according to a fortune teller/plot device, she is not a vampire but a Dhampir--a human/vampire offspring. Think Blade minus anything remotely entertaining.

The legend of Bloodrayne reaches a group of vampire hunters from the Brimstone Society led by Vladimir (Michael Madsen) and his partners Katarin (Michele Rodriguez) and Sebastian (Matthew Davis). Vladimir's protégés are skeptical of the prophecy that surrounds the Dhampir, they’re looking to take out Rayne and garner any reward that might come from her violent end. Vladimir on the other hand, believes Rayne may actually be the key figure in the war between vampires and humans.

Naturally, everything comes down to a final showdown between good and evil, and a series of inept action sequences that only a director as incompetent as Uwe Boll can deliver. The dialogue is a bit surprising, as it was written by the talented Guinivere Turner who wrote excellent scripts for American Psycho and her own directorial effort Go Fish. Working outside of her comfort zone in the fantasy/action genre Turner has delivered a script that only Uwe Boll could love. Then again, Boll probably didn't care about the screenplay. 

Filled to overflow with ridiculous battle scenes and nonsense character motivations, Bloodrayne is actually a real hoot if you can step away and appreciate the unintentional camp. As Tara Reid playing a scientist was a big laugh in Boll's previous film Alone In The Dark, Michael Madsen playing a character named Vladimir and delivering portentous speeches about vampire lore is one of the funnier things in any non-comedy I’ve ever seen.. You have to respect Madsen's ability to keep a straight face in these scenes. Madsen's lethargy is all that keeps Bloodrayne from being a legendary camp farce.

The only entertaining aspect of Bloodrayne is the enormous volume of unintentional laughs it draws. I nearly had to leave the theater as my fellow filmgoers shot me dirty looks for my loud guffaws. Not that I was the only one laughing, but some people actually seemed to follow the film, which I also found hysterically funny. Ben Kingsley is a true unintended riot as the vampire king. Only Eddie Redmayne’s legendary over top performance in Jupiter Ascending can match the screen chewing of Kingsley in Bloodrayne. It is  a tour de force of unintended camp.  

Finally, pushing the film's camp quotient into the red is the cameo appearance of the brilliantly over-the-top Billy Zane. As the mysterious leader of the Brimstone Society, Zane's character Elrich is locked away from the main characters in a far-off castle, leaving him to speak aloud to himself and belt every ridiculous line of dialogue all the way to the back of the room. Zane gives a comedy cameo in Bloodrayne that blows away any comedy cameo you have ever seen. That it is not meant to be funny only makes it funnier.

Bloodrayne is nearly so bad it's good. In fact, if you are a brave filmgoer, with a strong sense of camp fun, I might just recommend Bloodrayne.

Movie Review G.I Joe The Rise of Cobra

G.I Joe The Rise of Cobra 

Directed by Stephen Sommers 

Written by Stuart Beattie, David Elliott, Paul Lovett 

Starring Channing Tatum, Marlon Wayans, Dennis Quaid, Ray Park, Joseph Gordon Levitt 

Release Date August 7th, 2009 

Published August 6th, 2009 

It is very, very, bad form to reference the great French auteur Jean Luc Godard in a review of something as ludicrous as G.I the movie but, the great director's quote that the best way to criticize a movie is to make another movie an apt and ironic way to discuss Paramount Pictures persnickety reaction to bad reviews of their other toy based movie Transformer Revenge of the Fallen (Again many apologies for dragging you into this Monsieur Godard). 

G.I Joe: The Rise of Cobra acts as a near perfect commentary on the Transformers sequel. The parallels are almost endless. You have properties based on toy lines. You have stunningly awful dialogue shouted by utterly moronic characters and stories so incomprehensible that they leave almost no logical basis whatsoever for their very existence. Oh, and don't forget the girls in the super tight clothes. The only difference between these movies is that G.I Joe knows it's ridiculous and runs with it while Michael Bay thinks he's making Lawrence of Arabia with giant talking robots. 

Stephen Summers, the good natured hack behind The Mummy, keeps things light and goofy and allows a good time to be had by all and not just those most forgiving. The plot of G.I Joe The Rise of Cobra is of absolutely no consequence. Ok, fine, here's a capsule: G.I Joe is a secret NATO organization with elite soldiers from around the world who keep bad guys at bay. The latest bad guy to step out of line is an arms dealer named McCullen (Christopher McCullen) who is grinding a 400 year old ax over the way his arms dealing fore-fathers were treated. 

McCullen has developed a weapon that is sentient and can eat all metal structures. The unwanted logical question is: Why, if he built the weapon does he then hire thugs to steal the weapon? We never knew the weapon was stolen or taken from him so it is weird to see him send people to steal it. Who knows why but McCullen indeed does hire The Baroness (Sienna Miller, every nerd's dream in librarian glasses and tight black leather) and Storm Shadow (Byung Hun Lee) a ninja.  I mention that Storm Shadow is a ninja because, like all fanboys, just the word 'Ninja' makes me giddy. 

The attempt to steal the weapon draws the ire of G.I Joe and all out war ensues in both the Joe's buried in the desert bunker and the arms dealer's underwater fortress beneath the ice caps of the north pole. I imagine director Summers and Screenwriter Stuart Beattie laughing like school children as they chose these locations, I certainly did when each was revealed. There is a definite kitsch at work here but not so much that G.I Joe becomes all out camp. It's a little too aware of its own out-there-ness to allow for camp. 

Ah, but kitsch without a doubt, this is kitsch. Just check the buck wild goofy cameo by Mummy star Brendan Fraser who appears for one scene and seems more like a reject from a Rushmore production of Apocalypse Now than the star of G.I Joe sequels to come. Fraser is the only actor truly aware of the goofiness. The rest of the cast mixes dedicated professionalism with a healthy amount of incredulity. 

That is except poor Channing Tatum whose deathly seriousness as the newest Joe, Duke, becomes the film's biggest unintentional joke. Tatum is a handsome kid but his mumbled lines and wooden face turn even his attempts at humor into the most forceful of kitsch. Tatum has a following among young girls who have only recently discovered how to properly apply the new school slang 'hottie'. New school, in that it has only been a part of our low culture for maybe a decade. 

The rest of the cast of G.I Joe seems about as in on the joke as director Sommers. The key is, their awareness never becomes irritating in that winking fashion, again save for Fraser. Dennis Quaid is among many who, I am sure, stifled giggles over his dialogue that is almost entirely exposition. Rachel Blanchard is quite the trooper selling an attraction to the mugging comic relief that is Marlon Wayans. She, naturally, has a 'catfight' with the Baroness that is pure cheesecake but also brief. Sienna Miller has the most backstory of any character and plays it to good effect, as good as can be expected of such a limited and witless script. 

And then there is Ray Park as Snake Eyes. This is the character most fanboys were waiting for and we are not disappointed. Park is already a fanboy legend as the gone too soon Darth Maul in Phantom Menace (There is a stunningly large amount of fan fiction solely dedicated to Darth Maul murdering Jar Jar Binks, not related to this review really but interesting). Snake Eyes is the brother of Storm Shadow and they battle with swords, guns, fists and feet in well choreographed battles that culminate in unexpected fashion. Ray Park has more range behind Snakeyes's leather mask than co-star Channing Tatum has shown in several movies. 

G.I Joe: The Rise of Cobra shames Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen not just in its better attitude and knowingness but also in special effects, editing and sound design, the alleged specialties of Mr. Michael Bay. The effects in G.I Joe work because of the clarity and uncluttered direction of Steven Sommers who managed this same economical trick in realizing The Mummy. Where Transformers 2 is a mess of robot carcasses battering one another at an ear splitting volume, G.I Joe is fleet and nimble, keeping the ludicrous action in focus where we can actually make out who is doing what to whom. 

G.I Joe The Rise of Cobra alsi unfolds quicker and lingers on noise far less than Transformers 2. Indeed, as Godard said, if you want to criticize a movie, make another movie. G.I is the other to Transformers 2 and Stephen Summers shows Michael Bay almost every mistake he made and then proceeds to make most of them again, only with a little more style and a whole lot more fun.

Movie Review Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009) 

Directed by Mark Waters 

Written by Jon Lucas, Scott Moore 

Starring Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Breckin Meyer, Lacey Chabert, Robert Forster, Emma Stone 

Release Date May 1st, 2009 

Published April 30th, 2009 

In this day and age of mass media marketing it is almost impossible for even the most objective of critics to not form some opinion of a movie before having seen it. Featurettes, commercials, and film trailers and posters are splattered over every inch of the internet and TV. Movie Stars appear on TV talk shows with clips and follow that with a podcast and an audio trailer.

Thus, I was exposed to the terrifically awful trailer for the Matthew McConaughey movie Ghosts of Girlfriends past more than 6 months ago and the stream of promotion has been unfailingly ever present  ever since. The subsequent clips, commercials and trailers have been as bad or worse than that first trailer and I must be honest and admit that I was bracing for a disaster when I finally saw the movie.

These many promotions for the film offer a seriously dopey series of rom-com clichés pitched to the plot of Dickens' A Christmas Carol and a super generic pop soundtrack. Matthew McConaughey's recent track record of bad movie after bad movie does the film's reputation no favors either. So, imagine my surprise when first I chuckled and then laughed out loud and was eventually kind of taken in by this admittedly cheesy but undeniably compelling romantic comedy. Don't get me wrong, this is not a really good movie but it succeeds for not being nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

Connor Mead (McConaughey) is a world famous photographer whose string of sexual encounters would cause Wilt Chamberlain to advise a nap. Having lost his parents when he was just 7 years old, Connor and his younger brother Paul (Breckin Meyer) were raised by their playboy uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas). It was Uncle Wayne who taught Connor to treat women as he does and it will be Uncle Wayne who will teach him the error of his ways.

Conor is attending Paul's wedding to Sandra (Lacey Chabert) where he encounters the one girl who really ever got to him, Jenny (Jennifer Garner). The encounter sends Connor on a bit of a binge and soon he is seeing ghosts. First, it's the ghost of his late Uncle who lays out the plot: Connor will be visited by three other ghosts, each representing the women who Connor's womanizing ways have victimized.

Say, doesn't that three ghosts thing sound familiar? Of course it does, it's Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Instead of the miserly money grubbing Scrooge we have the sex addicted misogynist Connor. In place of his late partner Marley and his rattling chains we have Connor's mentor Uncle Wayne with his glass of whiskey with ice clinking in the glass. The copied plot offers the opportunity for the film to be lazy and at times it is, especially when establishing a timeline for Connor's life. However, thanks to the committed and forthright performance of McConaughey, a lot of the film's troubles go by the wayside.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is a little coy about exploring what a bastard Connor truly is, the best and lamest example has him breaking up with three girls at once over a conference call while his next conquest watches from his bed. The scene is played for awkward laughs rather than an ominous sign of Connor's troubled soul and the conflict fails to develop. Much of the first act struggles this way but once Emma Stone arrives as the first of three ghosts and Connor is forced to see the wreckage of his life things take a surprisingly compelling turn. Also helping things along is the chemistry between McConaughey and Garner as the one woman who ever to called Connor on his garbage.

Romantic comedy convention will require Connor to be reformed and for he and Jenny to fall in love. What director Mark Waters does well is keep the typical roadblocks thrown in front of them believable enough to distract from the inevitability. Then it becomes the job of the actors to make us want to see them together and McConaughey and Garner pull that off splendidly. Garner's Jenny is just the kind of girl to make a bad dog go good and McConaughey's believable turn from scumbag to reformed good guy is shockingly plausible.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past is a highly flawed film but, by the standard of your average romantic comedy, it's not that bad. Low expectations based on the awful marketing campaign have certainly helped me to this relatively positive conclusion, but nevertheless, I can't pretend I didn't enjoy Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. 

Movie Review Ghost Ship

Ghost Ship (2002) 

Directed by Steve Beck 

Written by Mark Hanlon, John Pogue 

Starring Julianna Margulies, Ron Eldard, Desmond Harrington, Isaiah Washington, Gabriel Byrne 

Release Date October 25th, 2002 

Published October 24th, 2002 

In the last couple years the Halloween Box Office has been quite a let down for horror fans. A year ago it was the dreadfully bad Thirteen Ghosts. In 2000, the awful Blair Witch sequel, Book of Secrets, ruined the franchise. Finally, in '99 there was the not-so-bad House On Haunted Hill, though I stretch to call that a real horror film, it's more of a parody. This year we get our first quality horror release on a Halloween weekend in forever. And yes, I realize I'm stretching the word 'quality' to its absolute breaking point. Ghost Ship has the atmosphere and gore of the best horror films even while having the generic storytelling of some of the worst horror films.

Ghost Ship stars Julianna Marguilies as Epps, a tough as nails co-owner of a salvage tug. Her partner is Gabriel Byrne's Murphy, your typical been-there-done-that salty dog of the sea. Murphy has been on the ocean since he was conceived. They and their crew of doomed character actors, Dodge (Ron Eldard), Greer (Isaiah Washington) and Santos (Alex Dimitriades), are approached by a weather pilot named Ferriman (Desmond Herrington). 

The pilot has found a ship that he believes to be abandoned and he claims that he will tell the crew how to find it for a cut of the salvage. Epps and company agree and the crew, along with Ferriman, go in search of this surprisingly large ship, the Antonia Graza, an Italian ocean liner, missing since its launch in 1966. While everyone is concerned about how a ship of that size could go unclaimed, they agree that "finders keepers'' is the rule of the sea and prepare to tow it to shore and claim their bounty. However before they can claim the ship they must repair it and their own conveniently damaged ship, which means one night on the creepy ocean liner.

Of course, from here strange things begin to happen, each crew member begins to encounter ghosts. Epps is visited by the ghost of a little girl who may or may not be a distant relative. Murphy meets the ghost of the ship's captain who tips him off to the fate of his crew. And Greer has a very interesting encounter with a sexy chanteuse in the ship's gorgeous ballroom. From there each character will be led to their death or potential death depending upon their billing. That said, Ghost Ship isn't about where the film is going, it's about how it gets there. And it's the getting there in Ghost Ship that is a stylish and visually-dazzling ride with a surprising amount of mystery and suspense.

My favorite part of Ghost Ship is the opening 10 minutes. As the film begins we meet the guests and crew of the Antonia Graza on its maiden voyage from Italy to America. The grisly deaths of the passengers is shocking and gory and deserving of a place in horror history as one the most memorable horror visuals of all time. Director Steve Beck, who also directed last year's Thirteen Ghosts, a much lesser movie, shows a real flair for set design and effects. Though Thirteen Ghosts was an awful film, it had its moments of visual splendor.

The surprising thing about Ghost Ship for me is how efficiently the film builds suspense via its excellent score. Composer John Frizzel, a veteran of horror films such as I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, Thirteen Ghosts, and Alien Resurrection, deftly combines horror screeches with the diva-esque singing of the luxury liner's singer and ghostly murderess Francesca Rettondini. Her haunting voice comes and goes throughout the film as an audible clue of the horror to come. Also credit must go to Cinematographer Gale Tattersall and Production Designer Graham Walker for giving the film a unique visual canvas that actually improves the film's generic story and performances.

It's a recent trend amongst horror films where production design has become as important or in this case more important than story and acting. The same could be said of Fear Dot Com, The Ring and even the most recent entries in the Friday the 13th and Halloween franchises. It doesn't work often but when it does, as it does in Ghost Ship, it is spectacular and makes an average horror movie an above average entertainment.

Movie Review Ghost Rider

Ghost Rider (2007) 

Directed by Mark Steven Johnson 

Written by Mark Steven Johnson 

Starring Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Wes Bentley, Sam Elliott, Peter Fonda 

Release Date February 16th, 2007

Published February 15th, 2007

Hiring Nicolas Cage to play Ghost Rider is strange for a few different reasons. The oddest thing about the choice of Nicolas Cage for this role is that he is simply too big a star for this. Any film producer would tell you that you don't hire a well known star like Nicolas Cage and then cover his face with computer generated effects. 

Ghost Rider requires that the star, in some of the movie's biggest and most important scenes, will be covered by CGI bones and flames. This is natural for a lesser known actor, not for one as well known as Nic Cage. Nevertheless, Cage campaigned for the role and got it and now Ghost Rider is out there and though Cage is missing from some of the film's biggest moments, I can't imagine the movie being as fun or entertaining without him.

When Johnny Blaze (Matt Long) was a kid riding motorcycles in carnivals with his dad, Barton (Brett Cullen), he made a deal with the devil (Peter Fonda). Johnny's father was sick and dying so Johnny made a deal that he thought would save his dad's life. In exchange rescuing Dad, the devil told Johnny that some time in the future he would return to collect on Johnny's debt.

Nearly 30 years later, Johnny (Nicolas Cage) is a world famous motorcycle stunt rider. His jumps over lines of cars, trucks, even helicopters are pay per view sensations. The life he gave up after selling his soul seems to be coming back into focus as  his childhood sweetheart Roxy (Eva Mendes), who he had once planned to run away with, comes back into his life.

The sparks ignite once again between Johnny and Roxy but unfortunately it is then that the devil returns to collect his debt. Seems the devil's own son, Blackheart (Wes Bentley), has escaped from hell and is planning on taking over the world. It will be Johnny's job as the devil's new bounty hunter to bring down Blackheart before he can get his hands on a legendary contract full of souls that could destroy the world. Thus, Johnny becomes the Ghost Rider, a flame skulled super-hero who does the devil's dirty work. Riding a flaming motorcycle and carrying a flaming chain, Ghost Rider battles evil and collects their souls for Satan.

Directed by Mark Steven Johnson, the man behind Marvel's Daredevil movie, Ghost Rider is a big time action spectacle with outsized special effects and a good deal of goofiness. Johnson knows this material well, he is clearly a fan of the comics, and his love for the material really shines through. The detail and the humor of Ghost Rider comes from Johnson's familiarity with the material and a bit of his own wit. The effects of Ghost Rider, headed up by special effects supervisor Kevin Mack, leading a team from Sony Imageworks, are exceptional. The flaming skull, the flaming motorcycle, and Ghost Rider's fiery ride up the side of a skyscraper are all very impressive computer generated effects.

Nicolas Cage campaigned hard for the role of Johnny Blaze and got it despite the fact that it was written initially for a much younger actor. Cage is a huge fan of Ghost Rider and even had to have a Ghost Rider tattoo on his arm covered with make-up for the movie. Cage brings a sardonic, off kilter charm to Ghost Rider and Johnny Blaze. The fact that the character loves Jelly Beans and Karen Carpenter are odd character details that Cage plays with gusto.

Less interesting is the supporting cast who, aside from Donal Logue's comic relief as Cage's pal, are underwhelming. Eva Mendes is smokin' hot but in an underwritten role she struggles for screen time and is made to look foolish in more than one scene. She, at least, comes off better than Wes Bentley as the film's villain. The American Beauty actor, who has done little since that Oscar winner in 1999, is too slight and affected to be a believable foe for the powerful Ghost Rider. Essentially, Cage's charisma and star power blows Bentley off the screen.

Ghost Rider is flawed and is certainly not in the class of comic book legends like Spiderman or Batman but it is a rollicking, exciting action adventure B-movie. Nicolas Cage is a big star, bigger than the character he plays, and he makes this unusual role work with quirky details and comic book cool. Ghost Rider is funny and exciting, even a little scary for younger audiences. Most important, Ghost Rider is just damn entertaining and that is what it's all about.

Movie Review: Secretary

Secretary (2002) 

Directed by Steven Shainberg 

Written by Erin Cressida Wilson 

Starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Spader, Jeremy Davies, Leslie Ann Warren 

Release Date September 20th, 2002 

Published September 19th, 2002 

Recently, I have come to hate even the idea of a romantic comedy. The genre's many conventions and classic elements have overwhelmed any film tagged with the romantic comedy label. Take for instance the Resse Witherspoon romantic comedy Sweet Home Alabama, which seems as if it were assembled in a romantic comedy factory. Every element of that film was clipped from previous films in the genre and pasted together under a new title with a big star's name attached to the poster. However, just when I have lost all faith in movie romance comes a most unlikely romantic comedy called Secretary. This is by no means a traditional romantic comedy, but it does have both comedy and a very unique romance.

In Secretary Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Lee Holloway, a troubled young woman just out of the hospital after what was believed to be a suicide attempt. Lee is looking for a way out from under her dysfunctional family which includes an alcoholic father (Stephen McHattie) and her overprotective mother (Leslie Ann Warren). Lee has taken to cutting herself with knives and needles as a way of dealing with her parents' constant arguing; the apparent suicide attempt may not actually have been suicide but rather an accident while cutting. Lee is still trying to figure herself out but she seems to take pleasure from hurting herself.

One way for Lee to get away from her parents may be to marry an ex-high school friend named Peter (Jeremy Davies) or she could get a job and make her own way. Lee decides to get a job and, using her amazingly fast typing skills, Lee lands a job as a secretary for a lawyer named E. Edward Grey (James Spader). It doesn't take long before Lee figures out that there is something unusual about her new boss who seems quite particular about the order of the office. When Edward catches Lee cutting herself, he orders her never to do it again and his forcefulness begins a strange sort of courting that includes sado-masochistic punishments for mistakes--which Lee makes a lot of once she realizes how much she enjoys it.

Secretary is so unique and funny that you laugh at things you once may have thought shocking or even appalling. The performances by Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader are pitch perfect which helps the audience to accept the weird behavior. Though Spader has been criticized for too often trading on his creepy persona that he has cultivated throughout his career, I found it interesting to see him make that creepiness a likable trait for once.

Director Steve Shainberg does an excellent job of combining likable performances with difficult material. It's likely that if Secretary were made without the amazing lead performances of Gyllenhaal and Spader it wouldn't have worked. Even when the film seems to fly off the rails in the last 20 minutes, the actors save it with their endlessly likable performances and fiery chemistry. In a year light on good comedy, Secretary is a standout. The material might not appeal to all audiences, but the actors will--if you give them the chance.

The Medallion

The Medallion (2003) 

Directed  by Gordon Chan 

Written by Bennett Joshua Davlin, Alfred Cheung, Gordon Chan, Paul Wheeler, Bey Logan

Starring Jackie Chan, Lee Evans, Claire Forlani, Julian Sands, John Rhy-Davies 

Release Date August 22nd, 2003 

As a stuntman Jackie Chan is unparalleled. However, as an actor, Jackie fights dialogue and loses badly. I can't fault Jackie for not having mastered the English language but I can fault the numerous directors who still force Chan to wrestle with not only dialogue but jokes and one liners, something that is almost as painful as one of Jackie's numerous pratfalls. In The Medallion, Jackie is once again relied upon to deliver jokey dialogue in between the fights, and though the fights are fun, the dialogue is absolutely deathly.

Chan is yet again in the role of a Hong Kong cop sent around the world to fight bad guys. In this version he's Eddie Yong and he is searching for a mystical young boy with strange powers who has been taken hostage by a terrorist named Snake-head (Julian Sands). On Eddie's side are a pair of Interpol agents, the bumbling comic relief Arthur (Lee Evans)and the love interest Nicole (Claire Forlani).

The Medallion of the title is the boy’s power source. With it he can bestow immortality or take it away. He can also use it to bring people back to life, which comes in handy when Eddie is killed attempting to save him. Not only does Eddie come back from the dead he now has super strength and immortality. However Snakehead has also used the Medallion and has the same powers as Eddie leading to climactic battle that is essentially an exercise in special effects, which really doesn't suit Jackie's more natural approach to fight scenes.

But then not much of anything in The Medallion seems to suit Jackie's talents save for the early fight scenes where Jackie gracefully works his way through henchman after henchman, barely breaking a sweat. When he does sweat it's usually fighting his way through sub Abbot and Costello style banter with Evans.

Director Gordon Chan, directing his first western feature, seems at a loss trying to combine Hong Kong action with a Hollywood script that calls for as much acting as fighting. You can see from the hack job editing that Gordon Chan didn't have a clue what to do with the film’s scripted humor which looks as if it was pieced together from the outtakes that always play during the credits of a Jackie Chan film.

The Medallion is yet another attempt by Hollywood to shoehorn Jackie Chan into American style action comedy and, like last years The Tuxedo, it's yet another failure. Jackie Chan is a charismatic and lovable actor but watching him have to wrestle with a script that doesn't suit his talents is painful to watch and impossible to enjoy.