Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
A bet pits a British inventor, a Chinese thief and a French artist on a worldwide adventure that they can circle the globe in 80 days.
This 2004 Jackie Chan vehicle loosely adapts Jules Verne's classic but trades story fidelity and wit for slapstick comedy and action set pieces. The plot is thin and episodic, stitching together globe-trotting vignettes with little dramatic tension. Acting is broadly comedic and rarely rises above mugging, with Steve Coogan and Jackie Chan delivering competent but unremarkable performances. Cinematography captures a variety of colorful international locations reasonably well, the one modest bright spot. Novelty is low — it neither faithfully adapts its source nor does anything particularly fresh with the material, feeling like a generic Jackie Chan action-comedy dressed in period costume. The ending is predictable and unsatisfying, wrapping up the thin stakes without any real payoff.