|
|
|
Jackie Chan Presents: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
etal Mayhem is nothing if not accommodating. The film conveniently tells you what you're going to see right in the opening credits: "When an American robot goes wrong in Hong Kong ... and it's too hot for the FBI and the Hong Kong police to handle ... that's when they call on an elite squad of undercover detectives."
But Match (Fung), Alien (Lee) and their new buddy Edison (Chen) are hardly your usual elite squad of undercover detectives. They may be in Hong Kong, but they're the spiritual descendants of Miami Vice's Crockett and Tubbs. They've got the coolest clothes, haircuts and camera angles, and plenty of attitude to go with it. They also look like they're about 19. Apparently they skipped the uncool parts of policework, like traffic enforcement or the academy, and went straight to elite undercover status.
Their cool is put to the test when the prototype law enforcement robot RS-1 arrives from America with a squad of FBI minders. There's already been one deadly attempt to hack into the heavily armed RS-1. The FBI are in full alert mode and insist on running the show themselves. Ian Curtis (Rudd) is the most infuriatingly smug of the FBI agents, but they're all a condescending bunch. Things get off on the wrong foot when the special security arrangements for the robot aren't up to FBI standards. Before long, the heroes are reduced to carrying the agents' luggage and fetching coffee.
Enter Kurt (Sun), Edison's childhood friend and, coincidentally, the hacker after the RS-1. Kurt designed the robot and claims his work was stolen. But in fact he's gone totally mad. Kurt uses a drugged and hypnotized Edison to get the robot out of its secure facility, and suddenly Edison's on the wrong side of the law. When Match and Alien try to help, they end up in the FBI's sights as well.
Things get more complicated as the trio tries to prove Edison's innocence and recover the robot, all while evading the trigger-happy FBI agents. Meanwhile Kurt's inner tripwire just keeps getting stretched tighter—and his finger's on the button of the most deadly combat machine in the world.
"Sino-punk" action with heart and style
Metal Mayhem is a flashy, delirious, often nonsensical rock video of a movie. Viewers' individual limits will vary, but eventually there comes a breaking point. Perhaps it will be when Edison discerns the location of the robot, which he has no way of knowing, through "hyposis," which is like hypnosis, but better. But sooner or later every viewer will want to storm out of the room and declare Metal Mayhem the most ridiculous thing they've ever seen. The problem is that they're having too much fun.
Metal Mayhem is the Americanized version of a Hong Kong film called Gen-Y Cops (sequel to the aptly named smash hit Gen-X Cops). It's unclear how the "Jackie Chan presents" label was justified, since he doesn't appear to have anything to do with the film. However, the label is an effective way to let American audiences know up front what kind of movie they're getting themselves into.
Despite Chan's hard-won U.S. success, though, Hong Kong films still struggle to cross over from a subculture of fans to the mainstream. Some viewers will love Metal Mayhem and some will hate it. In particular, viewers unfamiliar with the style of Hong Kong films may find it hard to reconcile the slapstick sense of humor with the stylized hyper-action.
However, for fans of Hong Kong films, part of the appeal is their different cultural background. Metal Mayhem even offers a bracing view of Americans as others see us, and the Chinese as plucky underdogs giving them their well-deserved comeuppance, although everybody ends up buddies by the end.
Sure, Metal Mayhem is ridiculous, but in the same way that James Bond movies are ridiculous. And its fantasy appeals to the same part of us. It takes us to a stylized world we can breeze through with panache because we're too cool to get hurt—except in minor ways that make us even more cool. It's a world where if your Ferrari blows up—and it will—you just shrug and move on. And in the end the good guys save the day, then all go party together. We couldn't live there, but it's a great place to spend a couple hours.
Despite the unfortunate title, Metal Mayhem is a movie that will get up there and perform its heart out if you give it a chance. There are plenty of good Hong Kong films with SF elements, and Regent Entertainment is a major supplier of content to U.S. cable networks. If Metal Mayhem does well enough to encourage more projects, Hong Kong fans could be in for a treat. — John
Also in this issue: Rollerball and Escaflowne
|
 |
|
| Home |
Copyright © 1998-2006, Science Fiction Weekly (TM). All rights reserved. Reproduction in any medium strictly prohibited. Maintained by scifiweekly@scifi.com. |
