Director Jackie Chan’s Project A 2 doesn’t live up to 1983’s pirate-laden original, mainly due to a period-piece setting that bogs down the story like a wet blanket.
Returning as super sailor Dragon Mao, Chan is recruited by the government to go undercover to expose a crooked inspector who stages his own arrests and murders the innocent. Meanwhile, Dragon’s being hunted by the pirates he defeated in the first film, although this is really just a weak throwaway link in order to justify the addition of a numeral to the title.
The first two-thirds of Project A 2 are heavy with dull dialogue, although it occasionally comes alive with an action scene, like when Chan and another man are handcuffed to one another and chased by half a dozen hatchet-wielding baddies. The final 20 minutes or so almost redeem the picture, with an extended set piece involving a giant hamster wheel, chili peppers and a toppling facade (a famous nod to Buster Keaton).
Ultimately, however, the sequel suffers from the same problem as Chan’s Miracles, a 1989 film set in the 1930s: too much period, not enough exclamation. —Rod Lott