Grade: B

Verdict: A funny, action-packed Wild West romp.

Details: Rated PG-13 for violence, some drug humor, profanity and sensuality. 1 hour, 45 minutes.

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Review: A buddy movie that tweaks cowboy cliches as it gallops through the prairies, "Shanghai Noon" lassos up all the revisionist laughs and action scenes that last summer's Wild Wild West botched. Following Rush Hour, it shows that Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan may have finally found the formula for Hollywood stardom. Give Chan a comic co-star and a movie genre that's familiar but flexible, and let him rip.

Here Chan plays Chon Wang, a member of China's imperial guard, who volunteers to head to the United States (along with three other guards) to rescue Princess Pei Pei (Lucy Liu). Fleeing an arranged engagement, she's been tricked and kidnapped by Chinese traitor Lo Fong (Roger Yuan), who has enslaved scores of his fellow countrymen, forcing them to lay railroad tracks in rough-and-tumble Nevada.

Way out West, Con crosses paths with sensitive train robber Roy (Owen Wilson). They don't exactly bond at first sight, but come together after separate encounters with some angry Crow tribesmen and Roy's traitorous gang members. Passing through the genre's familiar stations -- bordellos, posses, gallows and shootouts -- Noon lets Chan use moose antlers, horseshoes and pine saplings as weapons, take a big fall from a mission bell tower, and contend with a drunken horse. He also demonstrates a memorable method for breaking out of jail, involving a length of silk and a bodily function.

Sure, Tom Cruise did many of his stunts in Mission: Impossible 2. But Chan has been doing all of his own for 20 years. The movie doesn't underscore his work with slo-mo shots, although you might wish it did; you'll marvel at his speed and precision.

"Shanghai Noon" doesn't have a major, gasp-inducing stunt centerpiece that most of Chan's movies feature. It's more generous toward the balance between the Hong Kong star and Wilson. Besides, by now Chan doesn't have to prove anything. He's perfected his mix of good-natured goofiness and switchblade movements. (On the goofy side of things, he gets wasted on a night of peace-pipe puffing, and later during a drinking game Wilson teaches him at a brothel, where for some reason they wind up splashing around in the same bathtub.) Wilson holds his own against Chan, delivering a sweetly off-kilter performance that's bound to elevate his Hollywood profile.

First-time feature director Tom Dey gives us a West comically teeming with cultural confusion; white settlers variously mistake Chan for a Native American or a Jew. Screenwriters Alfred Gough and Miles Millar don't pretend to be historically accurate. Their anachronistic dialogue has Roy trying to woo a girl away from Chon by warning her, "He comes from a very male-dominated society."

The fine supporting cast includes Walton Goggins as a double-crossing bank robber, Xander Berkeley as a hissable marshal, and Brandon Merrill as a resourceful Native American princess who comes to the bumbling leads' rescue more than once. Liu gets a chance to cut loose with some martial arts moves near the end, but her character could have been given more oomph to raise the movie's already high energy.

Paying homage to the widescreen appeal of the Western landscape, cinematographer Dan Mindel delivers several breathtaking vistas. And yes, for the record Chan and Wilson ride off into the sunset together. But don't leave when they do, or you'll miss the credits, featuring Chan's traditional outtakes, goofs and blunders.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service

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