The Tuxedo is not the worst of Jackie Chan’s American movies — that’d be The Medallion and The Spy Next Door — but close enough.

Chan plays Tong … James Tong, a mild-mannered cabbie with a lead foot and a Hooters T-shirt who one day is hired as the driver for billionaire Clark Devlin (Harry Potter vet Jason Isaacs), a secret agent with a gadget-equipped and strength-empowering techno-tuxedo. When he’s nearly killed by a skateboard bomb, James takes it upon himself to don the tux and continue Clark’s espionage work.

Said work has something to do with the world’s water supply being threatened, but it’s so poorly explained that you won’t know what’s going on until the end. Pairing up with James is the wonderful pair of Jennifer Love Hewitt (Can’t Hardly Wait) as an agency chemist. Although she initially has the air of being miscast, she acquits herself fairly well; all the cleavage shots work toward that admirable goal.

Even if Jackie’s English were good (every time he said “Clark Devlin,” I thought he said “Cock Devlin”), The Tuxedo still would be a difficult movie to understand. I’m not sure it ever intended to tell a lucid story; rather, its aim seems to be to put him in one demonstration of physical prowess after another. The ones that are 100 percent Chan are fun; the ones that are 50 percent CGI, not so much.

And that’s the movie’s biggest problem: It doesn’t quite know how to use him, and when it does, it muddles it up with confusing editing and poor direction by first-timer Kevin Donovan. By not using its star’s massive physical potential, it might as well be, I dunno, Craig Sheffer in The Tuxedo. As with the Rush Hour franchise, the most enjoyable part comes with the end-credit outtakes. —Rod Lott

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Why was Action Jackson denied its own franchise? With such macho-flick pedigree — Lethal Weapon’s Joel Silver as producer, stunt man Craig R. Baxley as director and, of course, Apollo Creed himself in the starring role — it looked like Carl Weathers was poised to jump from the Rocky series to his own soon-to-wear-out-its-welcome character.

I blame The Pointer Sisters being on the soundtrack. But I also blame a stupid screenplay and Silver/Baxley for allowing it to dip itself into the pool of ’80s excess.

Weathers is Sgt. Jericho “Action” Jackson. This cat is so cool that the first words we hear out of his mouth are “Mellow out.” Plus, as we learn in the opening minutes, he can run as fast as a speeding taxi. Repeat: as fast as a speeding taxi. Because the boss’ wife has a Parcheesi game, Jackson is asked to attend a Man of the Year dinner for Peter Dellaplane (Poltergeist pops Craig T. Nelson), who happens to be the father of the sexual psychopath who got Jackson demoted, despite his ability to run as fast as a speeding taxi.

Jackson and Dellaplane naturally exchange words at the frou-frou event, as our Harvard-educated supercop sees right through the sleazy auto magnate’s do-gooder public persona. Sure enough, Dellaplane likes to deal with his competition by truly eliminating them. Catch my drift? (Murder, yo.)

For every kick-ass element to Action Jackson, there’s an equal and opposite reaction. Example: Sharon Stone nude in a steam room; Herbie Hancock’s “wacky” sax licks. Another: Vanity; Vanity. But the worst of all is the dialogue, presumably written as a string of intended catchphrases, particularly in its third act. Following one character busting in on trouble with a hearty “Hello, I’m Mr. Ed! You called about a paint job?,” you get Jackson setting an enemy aflame after cracking, “Barbecue, huh? How do you like your ribs?” Oooooh, burn! —Rod Lott

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Hard Hunted — emphasis on the Hard — never strays from writer/director Andy Sidaris’ formula that made all his previous entries so successful. After all, had Sidaris done otherwise, the series never would have made it past No. 2. This would have dealt a blow to mankind.

A slimy, foreign rich guy who lives on a boat is trying to get back this glowing green paperweight-type thing that was stolen from him. Trying to stop him are spies played by former Playboy centerfolds Dona Spier, Roberta Vasquez and Cynthia Brimhall, and for some dumb reason, a couple of guys, too.

They communicate with one another via not-so-thinly-veiled messages on the local radio station, Hawaii’s KSXY, manned by a melon-heavy DJ (Ava Cadell) who likes to do her show from the comfortable confines of the hot tub. We wholeheartedly support this decision.

The gals are pursued by a Japanese guy in a stealth helicopter, Dona falls from a chopper and gets amnesia (in a subplot that brilliantly predates Christopher Nolan’s Memento — nah, just kidding), Brimhall sings three whole terrible songs, comic relief is supplied by two guys named “Wiley” and “Coyote,” and Tony Peck (son of Gregory) gets laid. As with the entire Sidaris oeuvre, Hard Hunted comes highly recommended to heterosexual males who subscribe to the theory of “the bigger, the better.” —Rod Lott

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The plot of Bail Out is too convoluted for its own good, but all you really know is this: It stars and was produced by one Mr. David Hasselhoff.

Davey plays “White Bread,” a tennis instructor and bounty hunter hired by an annoying Jewish bail bondsman to make sure spoiled heiress Nettie Ridgeway (The Exorcist‘s Linda Blair) shows up in court. Then he turns into Rambo when she’s kidnapped by swarthy foreign types with Uzis. With the help of his skip-tracin’ pals Blue (the black guy) and Bean (the Hispanic guy), he vows to rescue her.

At first, Nettie doesn’t even like White Bread (who can blame her?), leaving him stranded without clothes at a cheap sex motel. Earlier, he plays air tennis with a stripper while she dances onstage! The strangest moment, however, comes courtesy the bail bondsman, who refuses to pay Bean in cash because his family will “use it to buy marijuana and wine!”

Despite all the dead bodies, the movie wants to be funny, too. Unfortunately, its attempts at humor are reminiscent of the lame ’80s NBC TV-movies loaded with sitcom stars like Night Court’s Richard Moll, Family Ties’ Tina Yothers, a lesser Cosby kid or two and of course Jackée from 227. You know the ones: They were either set in Europe or at a summer camp.

Hasselhoff’s in way over his head in this one on all fronts. He even says to himself, “I can’t believe he called me ‘fuckface!’” Really, David? —Rod Lott

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Roger Moore’s seventh go-round as James Bond doubled as his last, and proof that it was time for him to go occurs almost immediately in A View to a Kill. During the otherwise fine ski-and-snowmobile-chase prologue, Agent 007 knocks out a couple of Russian goons by snowboarding into their faces, at which point the soundtrack blasts a soundalike version of The Beach Boys’ “California Girls.” Never mind this scene takes place half a world away from the Golden State — it’s that anyone thought that joke was a good idea is what we should be worried about.

One Duran Duran title sequence later, the real story begins, with blimp-loving French industrialist Max Zorin (Christopher Walken, awesome as ever) plotting a microchip monopoly by striking Silicon Valley. 007 poses as a reporter to get close to Zorin and his mannish henchwoman, May Day (pop singer Grace Jones, frightening as ever) — one of Bond’s four sexual conquests within a tedious two hours and 11 minutes, including a hot-tubbing Alison Doody (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) and Virginia Slims-voiced blank slate Tanya Roberts (The Beastmaster).

Every time Bond is called upon to do more than throw a punch, workmanlike director John Glen (Octopussy) uses an obvious stunt double for Moore, then nearly 60, and the hair color doesn’t even match. Still, this does not keep the action set pieces from impressing — from a foot pursuit up the Eiffel Tower that becomes a car chase on the ground, to 007 swinging from an errant fire engine ladder through heavy traffic. The climactic Golden Gate Bridge finale is less notable, due to dated effects.

And speaking of dated, that Communism and the KGB loom over the film as big baddies is almost charming in a post-Cold War era. Moore’s inability to even try, however, is not. Look for Maud Adams and Dolph Lundgren in blink-and-miss-’em cameos; I missed ’em. —Rod Lott

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