"Around the World in 80 Days" is a galumphing, elephantine remake of the movie that won the Best Picture Oscar of 1956. Both films are, of course, based on the 19th Century Jules Verne classic in which Victorian nobleman Phileas Fogg makes a wager with the skeptical members of the British Royal Academy that he can circumnavigate the globe in the time alluded to in the title. Aided and abetted by his trusty valet and a young woman he picks up along the way, Fogg employs many then state-of-the-art traveling methods - hot-air balloon, locomotive, steamship etc. - to help him reach his goal.
This adaptation completely misses the charm and epic feel of both the novel and the original movie version. The suave and sophisticated David Niven has been replaced by the bland and unattractive Steve Coogan, who plays Fogg as a sort of absent-minded professor type rather than the bon vivant man-of-the-world that Niven made of him. Jackie Chan, who was instrumental in getting the film made in the first place, is a completely inadequate substitute for the delightful Cantinflas, a huge star in Latin America who made his name in America with the first film. Chan's performance consists almost entirely of smiling coyly and mugging for the camera. Cecile de France is grating and annoying in the role initially enacted by the peerless Shirley MacLaine.
Where the original film soared effortlessly into the rarified stratosphere of charm and imagination, this version lumbers along heavy-laden and earthbound, even going so far as to add a dreary subplot about a stolen holy relic and Chan's efforts to return it to his native village in China.
The 1956 version was famous for featuring dozens of major stars of the time in various cameo appearances. This new adaptation dispenses with this conceit entirely, with the one exception of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who appears for a few moments as a Turkish sultan, in a performance that is so intensely embarrassing that one is tempted to look away out of compassion for the man. But then that's pretty much the audience's reaction all the way through this film.
This adaptation completely misses the charm and epic feel of both the novel and the original movie version. The suave and sophisticated David Niven has been replaced by the bland and unattractive Steve Coogan, who plays Fogg as a sort of absent-minded professor type rather than the bon vivant man-of-the-world that Niven made of him. Jackie Chan, who was instrumental in getting the film made in the first place, is a completely inadequate substitute for the delightful Cantinflas, a huge star in Latin America who made his name in America with the first film. Chan's performance consists almost entirely of smiling coyly and mugging for the camera. Cecile de France is grating and annoying in the role initially enacted by the peerless Shirley MacLaine.
Where the original film soared effortlessly into the rarified stratosphere of charm and imagination, this version lumbers along heavy-laden and earthbound, even going so far as to add a dreary subplot about a stolen holy relic and Chan's efforts to return it to his native village in China.
The 1956 version was famous for featuring dozens of major stars of the time in various cameo appearances. This new adaptation dispenses with this conceit entirely, with the one exception of Arnold Schwarzenegger, who appears for a few moments as a Turkish sultan, in a performance that is so intensely embarrassing that one is tempted to look away out of compassion for the man. But then that's pretty much the audience's reaction all the way through this film.