VANGUARD (2020) *

Vanguard is an elite security agency owned by Jackie Chan.  Two of his best agents (Yang Yang and Lun Ai) are given the task to protect a VIP from kidnappers.  When they fail to capture him, they go after his daughter, which eventually springs Jackie into action.   

It pains me to say this, but it looks like Jackie’s entering the Steven Seagal phase of his career.  He spends large chunks of the movie sitting behind a desk while receiving plot updates from his assistant.  Yang and Ai do most of the stunt-heavy Kung Fu, although the choreography leaves something to be desired.  When Chan finally does do something, it’s pretty lame.  (Like when he gets chased by crummy looking CGI lions and hyenas.)  In fact, Vanguard is so bad that it makes some of Seagal’s recent efforts look like Drunken Master 2 in comparison. 

Vanguard starts off bad and only gets worse (and duller) as it goes along.  That’s mostly because Chan gets less and less to do.  Making it especially pathetic, is the fact it was directed by Stanley Tong, who helmed some of Jackie’s best stuff in the ‘90s.    

Seriously, this has to be the worst Chan flick I have ever seen.  (Worse than Iron Mask, if you can believe it.)  It took me NINE days to get through it, a new record for an under two-hour film.  It’s almost enough to make you want to swear off Kung Fu action/comedies entirely.   

The plot goes in circles.  The bad guys keep kidnapping good guys and then more good guys have to come and rescue them, resulting in a different good guy getting kidnapped.  All of this is monotonous.  Even the goofy shit, like the one guy who flies around on a skateboard like James Franco in Spider-Man 3 is undone by the shitty CGI.  In the end, the villain dips sportscars in gold and uses them to make his escape.  This sounds stupid, until you realize it was only done so that the CGI animators had an excuse to make the computerized stunt cars look cheap.  You know it’s bad when during the big car chase, Jackie doesn’t even drive, he rides shotgun.  

As with all of Chan’s films, make sure you watch the end credits sequence.  As per usual, it shows us all the bloopers that occurred while filming.  It also reveals that Jackie was almost killed during a jet ski mishap.  Because of that, I guess I can forgive him for spending so much of the movie behind a desk.