William Shakespeare embraced the use of historical settings and, for all his liberties, wrote timeless theatrical pieces that borrow from fact without always adhering to it.
The movie mostly falls short of deliberate absurdity and almost utterly lacks self-awareness. Meanwhile, history undergoes countless nips and tucks just to create a few more ridiculous coincidences.
As for subtlety, there is none. Once an attempt at clever historical juxtaposition has been made, the audience is flogged over the head with it — on the off chance we?d managed to drift off during a brief pause between karate sequences.
The film could therefore be considered entertaining only by one to whom ?entertainment? is synonymous with ?distraction.? Anyone else should quickly grow tired of awaiting the next contrivance to bring about the next action sequence.
A paying audience should rightfully be outraged at this waste of talent and charisma. It is the film?s conceit that the chance to bring the usually endearing Owen Wilson (?The Royal Tenenbaums?) and Jackie Chan (?The Tuxedo?) together a second time is reason enough to make a sequel.
In addition to the unavoidable likeability of Chan and Wilson, there are three things that provide some relief from the movie?s badness: Eye-catching direction (by ?Clay Pigeons? director David Dobkin), an unrelentingly fast tempo (though bad, it never gets boring) and, of course, the elaborate Jackie Chan fight choreography, which brings ?Shanghai Knights? as close to a Kung Fu Buster Keaton Talkie as any film ever needs to get.
Beyond these points lie movie clichés that fail to laugh at themselves, gags that will be redundant to anyone who?s ever spent any time awake, and, of course, the anachronisms, which will make the history teachers in the audience consider military action against Hollywood, U.N. support or not.
Viewers of this film should be aware, for starters, that the Jack the Ripper murders began in 1888, and Charlie Chaplin, here played by twelve-year-old British newcomer Aaron Johnson, was, in 1887, negative 2 years old.
The blundered attempts at historical references, the ?logic is inconvenient? plot and the recycled jokes and dialogue become so painfully strained by the film?s end that one may regret not making it a drinking game.
One player could drink at every cliché utterance and action of bad-guy Baldwin-in-waiting Aidan Gillen (?The Low Down?), another could drink at every tired joke about England (in 1887, everyone had bad teeth, not just the British), and lucky player number three could get sloshed on anachronisms.
If you attempt such a game, please bring a designated driver and please stick to beer containing less than 5 percent alcohol by volume. Best just to avoid this film.
Grade: D
