First Strike

Bomb Rating: 

Like many Chan movies, the most interesting thing about this one is watching guys nearly die in the outtakes at the end.

While I'm positive Jackie Chan could beat the crap out of Pierce Brosnan, that doesn't make him James Bond. Nevertheless, apparently tired of merely doing martial arts movies, Jackie turns to the world of international espionage in order to provide himself with new, death-defying stunts.

The first silly thing about this film is that the filmmakers and Chan have apparently given up on the idea that anybody in the world thinks that Jackie Chan in a movie is anybody other than Jackie Chan. So -- at least in the version I saw -- Jackie's character was named "Jackie." Now there's a test of an actor's range for you. Jackie plays a Hong Kong policeman in search of a stolen nuclear weapon.

Rather than making a film, Chan might have considered reviving the television series "That's Incredible," given that this is less a movie and more a series of clips recording Jackie's various stunts. First he's in Russia doing some snowboarding, then he's in Australia jumping on buildings, then underwater avoiding sharks.

The whole underwater shark thing becomes numbingly tiresome after about ten minutes of watching Jackie and the bad guys throw slow motion punches. Like many Chan movies, the most interesting thing about this one is watching guys nearly die in the outtakes at the end as Chan laughs at them, no doubt thinking, "Ha, ha. Chinese labor laws only require me to pay you forty cents an hour for that."

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