Around the World in 80 Days

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source: Around the World in 80 Days

Spoilers herein. They took an absolutely ordinary film - even dreary in places - and wrapped it in two things that are lovely. The first is a lovely production design. Pastel watercolors that are evocative of Verne's abstract nature. I have no idea who to credit for this, but the mundane story provides interstices of grace in the spaces usually occupied by filler. The other joy in this is the girl. Usually the girl in these things is a pretty screamer. What we have here is altogether novel in the nature of the girl. This one has a voice and tone that is ironically cartoonish. She's the female equivalent of Owen Wilson, but with pluck. A Julia Roberts smile specifically antiJulia. Only the Disney lab could scope out such a thing. Oh, and Jackie does his 'fight with ordinary objects' thing. Here, it is a stool, but the moves are the same we've seen a dozen times. Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

This movie is not good. The original plot of circumnavigating the world in 80 days is great but they had to water it down with pointless plot points. The entire Jade Buddha plot was so pointless and it was very annoying. This whole movie is so 2-dimensional; nothing of significance ever happens. Even Jackie Chan's fight sequences seemed worse. They seemed like they had a quarter of the available time to choreograph the fights compared to other Jackie Chan movies. Besides those points, the red head repeatedly getting beat up while trying to stop Phileas and Passpartout was pretty funny. Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan also had some arguably funny moments. Overall, there are better mindless movies to watch with kids, not to mention yourself.