Vanguard

This movie is Stoopid with a capital S. There’s a bulletproof limo chase early on and another one involving half a dozen pure-gold cars towards the end. There are hyena attacks, digital bee spies, robot pigeons, hover-boards, and a treehouse/cocoon deep in the African savanna. In what I assume is a nod to The Fast and the Furious franchise, a car flies off a tower, crashes through two apartments and a water truck before resuming its way. And yes – I know you’re all wondering – our heroes do birdwatch at one point. Calm your racing hearts.

The special effects range from extremely silly to halfway decent. The choppy editing doesn’t do the action sequences any favors. There’s some casual racism (our heroes don brown “war paint” to look more Middle-Eastern). The cardboard characters stand out the most, acting their hammy chops off, spewing terrible lines with worse accents. “I’m frying a pork knuckle,” a man says after immersing his opponent’s hand in boiling oil. From a plethora of such gems to pick from, I’ll have to go with “Best hunter in Africa my a*s! You can’t even hunt down a woman!” as the most offensive.

“There are worse ways to pass 90 minutes…”

Tong should have dialed down on the shoot-outs and upped the ante on elegant martial arts action. Chan barely shows up before the title credit sequence fifteen minutes into the film and then doesn’t do much but drive vehicles while his team battles away. At 66-years-old, who can blame him? But wouldn’t it have been awesome for him to pass the proverbial mantle to another legend-in-the-making?

If this film sounds like a waste of time to you, it probably is, and you may as well take one or two stars off the score at the bottom of this review. I happened to watch Vanguard precisely at a time when I needed a mindless distraction, one that didn’t pretend to be anything but a mindless distraction. Don’t come in expecting vintage Chan action, and you’ll get your money’s worth. Captain China would surely be proud.