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THE TUXEDO The best special effect in a Jackie Chan movie is always Chan himself, which makes the affable performer's latest American vehicle an especially ill- fitting and ill-conceived affair. Chan stars as Jimmy Tong, a bumbling, insecure chauffeur who works for a James Bond-like secret agent named Clark Devlin (Jason Isaacs). After getting seriously injured, Devlin insists Tong don the spiffy tuxedo hanging in his closet; upon doing so, the lowly driver discovers that the suit is top-of-the-line government issue, with the ability to tailor itself to its wearer's needs and allow him to do everything from fighting martial arts-style to climbing the walls in the best Spider-Man manner to even executing some smooth moves on the dance floor. Now dressed to thrill, Tong soon finds himself teaming up with a rookie partner (Jennifer Love Hewitt, enjoyably awful) to stop a bottled-water magnate (Ritchie Coster) plotting to contaminate the world's drinking supply so that his own line will be the only safe one in the world (even the occasionally flailing 007 series never stooped to a level this inane). It's always a rush to witness Chan in his purest form kick and chop his way across the screen, but The Tuxedo miscalculates badly by forcing the star to play second fiddle to the dull effects that allow the suit to come to life. Still, this is hardly the picture's only problem, not when the villain (British, brooding, and boring) is the standard one employed by lazy screenwriters everywhere, nor when Chan and Hewitt demonstrate so little chemistry that they might as well be acting in two separate movies. 
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