Around the World in 80 Days

(Herald rating * *)

Men of a certain age — your columnist puts his hand up here — grew up with, and fell asleep to, Jules Verne's wonderful sci-fi novels: 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, From The Earth To The Moon, Around the World in 80 Days. After three or four decades of Star Wars and Indiana Jones and computer-generated adventures, we know we're on a hiding to nothing when we try to persuade grandsons that Verne is really cool.

In this chop-socky interpretation, Britcomic Steve Coogan (aka Alan Partridge) plays the adventurer Phileas Fogg and Hong Kong-to-Hollywood action hero Jackie Chan plays his sidekick, Passepartout.

Since Chan is a star in bigger markets than Coogan, the classic tale has been twisted so that the sidekick is the real hero and the guy who was the central character is the straight man.

There are Victorian cameos all over the screen: Kathy Bates as Queen Victoria, Owen and Luke Wilson as the Wright Brothers, John Cleese as a British bobbie and Governor Schwarzenegger as a Turkish prince.

The new version begins relatively close to Verne's plot. Fogg bets London's stiffest upper-lips, members of the Explorers Club, that he can get around the world in 80 days. They take the wager and Fogg hires a valet, Passepartout, to help him on his way. Passepartout needs to get out of London in a hurry because he's just made a withdrawal from the Bank of England: the priceless Jade Buddha, which he wants to return to his village in China.

Cue Victorian modes of transport, horse, train, ship, hot-air balloon. Cue romantic interest, Monique (Cecile De France), who demands to join the expedition. Cue bizarre episodes like an evening with Prince Hapi of Turkey (Schwarzenegger), on the way to China and a dramatic episode with the Black Scorpions over the Jade Buddha, then to America to meet a pair of cycle salesmen, Wilbur and Orville Wright.

Clearly the scriptwriters hadn't heard of visionary Kiwi aviator Richard Pearse because our heroes invent the aeroplane and give the patent to the Wright brothers. However the intellectual property will come in handy when the lads need to get to London in a hurry.

Purists might complain that it ain't the original, but it's a fair lash of family fun for the holidays.

On the DVD director Frank Coraci covers the standard making-of in Discovering Around The World, while Chan goes over-the-top and round-the-sides to show how his stunts were done in the behind-the-scenes Around The World Of Jackie Chan. Most of the eight deleted scenes aren't particularly different from what appears in the movie. Coraci and Coogan offer an amusing commentary track.

DVD, video rental December 30