Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
We ran a pretty positive review for this one a couple of weeks ago, but today’s reviewer is a lot harder on the film. Check it out:
Harry, I'm a long-time reader and talkbacker and I'd like to chime in on Jackie's latest venture, NEW POLICE STORY.
I'm sad to say that the NEW POLICE STORY was a complete disappointment. Jackie gets up to his usual shenanigans, he does his usual aping and funny faces, but it just doesn't hit the mark.
To begin with, the plot is an incoherent mish-mash of cliches and unbelievable characters and situations. The chief bad guys, we're supposed to believe, are a bunch of wayward rich kids who are so bored that they set up a series of incredibly elaborate showdowns with the police that lead to the murder of Jackie's whole squad.
In a predictable and cartoonish cliche, we are treated to Jackie's police chief boss who then takes Jackie to task for letting this happen, blaming him for the whole incident blah blah, even though the viewer is knocked over the head that Jackie, in fact, did everything humanly possible to save his men. yawn...
Jackie descends into alcoholism. This twist, which I believe was at Jackie's insistence, is meant as a vehicle to become the next Deniro, marking his shift into serious roles. If this was the intent, he is in for a rocky ride. His approximation of a drunk makes it look like he's never had a drop of whiskey his entire life. It looks more like the clownish turn he did in DRUNKEN MASTER, except that there, he was playing it for laughs and it worked: here it is supposed to be high drama. it... just... looks... lame...
The ending of the film with all its high-rise, rooftop races simply doesn't have any feeling to it. We don't care about any of the characters and the fight scenes don't have the holy-sh**-how-did-they-do-that edge to them that imbues classic Chan flicks.
THE FIGHT SCENES
Let's get to the nitty-gritty. We don't go a Jackie Chan flick after all to see academy award winning performances. We go to see CHAN THE MAN!
Again, I'm sorry to say that he just doesn't pull it off. The stunts are okay but they are sort of been there done that. The fighting is just embarrassing. To see Jackie take on members of the gang is just embarrassing. I kept wanting to yell out, "Hey, don't hurt gramps!". Chan just looks old and out of place. I'm really sorry to say this as a die-hard Jackie Chan fan, but Jackie should hang up his gloves. The spectacle of a young gang member throwing lightning fast crisp kicks and punches at Jackie, while Jackie unconvincingly waves his arms around and makes his “I’m really intense face”, makes Jackie look like he's moving in slow-mo.
He's lost his speed. Let's face it: his techniques never looked extremely powerful, but they were really really fast. The problem is, once the speed is gone, and believe me it is gone, it just looks... sort... of... feeble.
For me, the rooftop scene in WHO AM I? may have been the last flash of brilliance of Chan. If this is all the steam he has left in him, he may want to do COP LAND 2 as his next film, following in Sly's illustrious footsteps...
Sorry to offend anyone: I wanted to see a climatic end to the POLICE STORY series as much as anyone. Maybe this one should have been entitled, POLICE STORY REVOLUTIONS. The attempt to update POLICE STORY with hip hop wanna be Vin Diesels was a complete failure. In fact, it would have been much more interesting if Jackie had kicked Vin Diesel himself around for two hours and then finally pimp slap Maggie Cheung before ditching her definitively rather than watching this burlesque.
Jackburtonlives
Ouch.
"Moriarty" out.
