Hollywood has little clue what to do with Jackie Chan. Their ideas boil down to: a) pair him with a wacky black guy, and b) surround him with special effects. The first one works; the second one never will. There’s no point in hiring the world’s most renowned kung-fu acrobatic clown and dressing him up with lots of wires and CGI; if you’re going to do that, you might as well get, say, Tim Kazurinsky.

In the FX-laden crapfest The Medallion, Chan is a Hong Kong security specialist named Eddie, working with American Interpol agents to track down Julian Sands, obsessed with getting this medallion from a mystical Asian boy. It ends up in Chan’s nimble hands, but he gets killed in the process, but yet is revived by its supernatural powers. So now he can jump real high and fly like Superman. It’s lazy and uninspired, not to mention inane and embarrassing, like the montage of him dancing to “Twist and Shout.”

Normally, bad Chan scripts can be made bearable by the ad-libbing of a crazy partner. But Lee Evans is no Chris Tucker or Owen Wilson. As a most unlikely love interest is Claire Forlani, so bad you’ll be praying for the relative grace and panache of The Tuxedo’s Jennifer Love Hewitt. Not even the outtakes that play during the end credits are any good, although it is worth noting that it contains the third instance of Chan being interrupted by a cell phone (first spotted in the bloopers for Rush Hour 2 and Shanghai Knights).

But that’s about all worth noting for this film, Chan’s absolute worst since breaking through on these shores in ’96. Even as a big Chan fan, I can safely say to avoid The Medallion at all costs. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

“You know what the problem with Hollywood is?” asks John Travolta at the beginning of Swordfish. “They make shit. Unremarkable, unbelievable shit.” The same could apply to this slick, brainless action-porn from Joel Silver and Dominic Sena (Gone in 60 Seconds) that manages to be merely mildly entertaining.

X-Men’s Hugh Jackman is the true star, playing a world-renowned hacker fresh off serving an 18-month prison term for his electronic crimes. Despite orders never to touch a computer again, he is drafted by slimy rich guy Travolta into cracking a few codes in exchange for money he can use to reunited with his estranged daughter. It’s a move he’ll soon regret, as the FBI is soon on his ass, while Travolta reveals himself to be a deluded terrorist wishing to embezzle $9 billion from secret DEA accounts with Jackman’s expertise.

For every good scene in Swordfish, there’s a terrible one. The opening city-block explosion shown in some sort of 360˚ bullet-time is a stunner; paradoxically, having Jackman forced to infiltrate a Department of Defense at gunpoint in 60 seconds while he’s receiving a blowjob is a howler.

Halle Berry’s bared breasts are nice; the montage of Jackman unconvincingly hacking away is not. Don Cheadle livens up every scene he’s in; Travolta — in another laughably miscast role — kills every one he’s in. It’s almost like the film is its own love/hate relationship. Seeing a school bus airlifted by a helicopter in the finale is absurd, but hey, ‘splosions a-plenty, amIright? —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.