AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS (2004) **1/2 I don't remember quite all this stuff from the Jules Verne imprint, but a lot of what wasn't there is pretty funny. So is it an improvement? Well, it's not a book anyway, and for a movie it's pretty funny. Funny, rather than daring and heroic? Well yeah, probably like that. On the other hand you've got Jackie Chan (gleefully whipping ass with a stool, for his old fans) in the middle of it, and Jules didn't know he'd be available. Steve Coogan and Cécile De France are little more than fine foils for Chan, but they play their parts with a flair that belies the verb discrete. So Chan's people probably aren't quite as ambitious as Jules, but they do a better job with his work than a lot of the more serious-minded might. Just in case you don't get it, cameos abound with Macy Gray being the most surprising and Owen Wilson the most effective. That bwah kin steal a scene from an'body when they let 'im do thet cahbwah tawk!
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