"Shanghai Noon" was one of the funniest and most spontanious films I have seen in months...... so I had no fear when I ponied up 26 bucks for this sequel, and I could not believe how weak it was. Okay... Chan is just fine, the fighting sequences are classic Chan and inventive, and of course he is charming and humorous. The cinematography is well crafted...... AND yes, there are some very major historic and continuity problems with this film....
First of all if you have any passion for historic recreations in film, you are going to be seriously disturbed by the amount of blunders here.. they are too numerous to mention, and on several websites are on-going discussions of what they were and why they were overlooked. Never mind, the first film had historic mistakes as well.. and one can argue that this IS comedy...... but if you KNOW history, they are going to be distracting and you will miss the action, comedy and excitement of the film.
However, my main complaint is the musical "jokes" that pepper the film. We are in Victorian London, England and we hear huge chunks of loud musical clips from pop songs of the 1950s and 60s, like the old Roger Miller tune "England Swings", "Singing in the Rain" (no it is not raining and Jackie is not singing when they play it), "Magic Bus" (no, there is no bus in the scene) and "Winchester Cathedral" which plays loudly in a scene filmed at... get this... "Buckingham Palace"!! There are more, very loud musical "jokes" that totally detract and ruin the mood of the setting, comic moments and the action at hand. The main orchestral score itself is actually well composed and performed, but the added outlandish musical jokes are totally inappropriate and go on far too long to be funny.... and in fact... without them, the movie, in my opinion, would have been a lot more fun and enjoyable.
As far as Owen's performance... it was clearly NOT up to the fine job he did in the first film. In "Noon" he was funny, loveable, playful and genuine. In this film he seems distracted, over-directed and less expressive. He also does not look like he is having fun with his character.... it's a walk through for him.
My suggestion is to get the first film... its a treasure. Far fetched, yes, but it has charm, comedy, continuity, drama, and loads of action. This new film is a series of jokes and parodies (musical and otherwise) that simply don't hold together or keep a person involved in the continuity... and even the great Jackie Chan can't keep it together alone.
