I have reviewed films here that I just don’t like, but I would have to say that The Tuxedo is interesting, because it is easily one of the worst films that I paid to see in the theater. Yes, it is a stretch to say that anything is one of the worst movies ever, but I won’t say it is the worst movie ever.

I should have saw it coming when the film opens with a shot of a fresh mountain stream, and a deer takes a drink by a beautiful waterfall. Then the deer takes a leak. Yeah, I should have ran to the theater exit door and demanded my money back. It probably wouldn’t have been too late. By the way, the film’s credits show this urine-soaked water being filtered into a bottled water company. Then it shows a secret agent working in said bottled water company being killed. He is not shot or stabbed, no, for that would be too simple. Instead, a plastic bag is put on his head, and water is pumped in. Yeah, that is as complicated as it sounds. Worse yet, the assassin says: “Aqua LaVista, baby”. Seriously? I mean, it sounds like that line was added in later. So they edited a line that should have been edited out.

The film opens with Jimmy Tong, a taxi driver who gets a job as a limo driver for a super spy named Clark Devlin. Devlin is essentially James Bond, but in a Lucius Malfoy form as he is portrayed by Jason Isaacs. On Jimmy’s first day, his limo is tagged with a sensor, and then a skateboard with a bomb chases him. Again, seriously? If you could put a homing device on the limo so the bomb/skateboard would chase the limo, why not put a bomb with a timer on the limo? But no, we have to have a needless chase scene.

This stupidity is just in the first twenty minutes. Personally, this is a film that had a lot of potential as the concept is very interesting. After Devlin is injured, Jimmy puts on Clark’s tuxedo. This tuxedo is essentially an advanced piece of technology that imbues its owner with superhuman speed and strength. This concept isn’t too unbelievable, as Iron Man was essentially the same principle. This film came out six years before Iron Man made the leap to the big screen, and this principle, outrageous as it is, was made to be a comedy.

The film stars Jackie Chan as Jimmy Tong, and it may have been written exclusively for him. After all, the man was made famous for his fast martial arts moves. In this film, he puts on a tuxedo that allows him to do fighting moves, but he cannot control his actions. This was apparently the joke that was made to sell this film, but there are several things this film does wrong.

First of all, it makes the villain, Dietrich Banning, the dumbest idea for a villain, and this includes the dumber James Bond films. Banning has his own spring water company, and he has an idea to poison all the world’s oceans so drinking any other water but Banning spring water will cause its victim to die of thirst. Since he will have the monopoly on all the world’s water, he will become the richest man in the world. This, coming from a guy who lives in a giant boat. More on this plot later.

The scenes where Jimmy first puts on the tuxedo are the best in the film, but they don’t last that long. The tuxedo can do some pretty amazing things that are at first somewhat believable, and he interfaces with the tux using a specialized wristwatch. The funniest scene is when he tries to program it for demonstration, but accidentally hits “demolition”. Then he somehow accesses “Shake Booty”. Why would this tuxedo have that function? Then the tuxedo allows him to climb walls. How would it do that? The strength and speed I believe, but the tuxedo begins to do things that are really a stretch by technological standards.

Soon, Jimmy Tong is immersed in a dumb spy movie plot, as he is mistaken for Devlin by another agent named Del Blaine (Jennifer Love Hewitt). Clearly, she did not look at Devlin’s file, as she didn’t seem to see through Jimmy’s obvious bad impersonation.

The biggest thing that I couldn’t stand about this film is that it could not decide whether it wanted to be a family film or target it at adults. There are a lot of scenes that are more than just sexually suggestive, so there is no way I could recommend this film for children. The premise is clearly too juvenile, but adult-oriented super hero movies have worked. Yet there were so many stupid things happening in this film that it no adult could believe in this film.

For example, the already aforementioned villainous plot. If Banning actually managed to poison all water but his own marketable spring water, don’t you think the military of every nation would stop at nothing to stop him? Not only that, the way all the ocean’s waters be poisoned is very idiotic as it involves using insects called water spiders. Agent Del Blaine, who seems to have some scientific ability, states that this plan won’t work as the water spiders can’t infect all of the world. Didn’t the villain figure out this stupid hole in his own plan?

Accept for the few brief seconds, I can’t think of anything good to say about this film. Like I said, this could have been an interesting comedy, but it took so many wrong turns. Maybe if they ever remake it, they will get it right.