At some point in my past, I made the decision to read as many classic novels as possible.  I cannot remember when I made this vow.  I have also not been keeping up with it in a regular manner.  It has not helped that I have been an extremely poor reader in recent years.  I blame this on having yet to recover from my graduate school days when I went through more tomes than I care to count.  Please do not take that as me being braggadocious.  In point of fact, I could number them, but I do not wish to do the calculations at the moment.  I bring this all up as a sign of my respect for good literature.  I wish I could say the same for Jackie Chan, who is listed as one of the executive producers of Around the World in 80 Days (2004), a film adaptation of one Jules Verne’s most famous works of the same title.  This means that Chan was in on many of the decisions made during the filming.  Now, I have no idea how he or the people with whom he associated landed on this title, but my guess is that they thought it would be recognizable.  They then filled it with a bunch of famous cameos, and again I would surmise that this was done in order to save it from being an unmitigated disaster that sets Western culture back about a century.  As I do not think that happened, let me at least describe to you some of the what happens in this savaging of a familiar tale.

The initial setting of Around the World in 80 Days aligns with Verne’s writing, but I am willing to bet that its London locale did not involve the robbing of the Bank of England.  This is accomplished by Lau Xing (Jackie Chan), who has stolen the Jade Buddha.  I have not read the book, but immediately I was saying, huh?  What?  As he flees from the authorities, he happens upon the house of inventor Phileas Fogg (Steve Coogan).  After Phileas puts his current valet through yet another dangerous scenario, the servant promptly quits.  Immediately following this, Lau Xing falls from a tree into Phileas’ yard, offering his services.  Phileas initially denies employment, citing the fact that he only hires Frenchmen.  With the authorities closely pursuing him, Lau Xing introduces himself as Passepartout, being French on his mother’s side.  Miraculously, this dupes Phileas and Lau Xing is hired (and I will continue to use his Chinese name).  The next day, Lau Xing accompanies his employer to the Royal Academy of Science where its minister, Lord Kelvin (Jim Broadbent), is dismissive of the inventor.  In order to get back to China to his village where the Jade Buddha belongs, and to give Phileas a boost of confidence in the eyes of the other scientists, Lau Xing gets one of the others in the room to propose a bet.  They put forward that Phileas attempt to make the eponymous trek.  If he can do so, he will replace Lord Kelvin at the head of the academy.  If he loses, he stands to lose a considerable amount of money and prestige.  As Lau Xing and Phileas leave, we are introduced to a further departure from the source material, the Black Scorpions.  Led by General Fang (Karen Mok), they are a shadowy group of warriors who stole the Jade Buddha at Lord Kelvin’s behest.  As such, they are trying to find Lau Xing to retrieve the statue, and Lord Kelvin seeks to prevent Phileas from completing a global circuit.  These machinations begin as soon as Lau Xing and Phileas leave the following morning, and get ready for a repetitive loop of going from one location to the next, only to be accosted by a fresh band of goons that are there to show off Jackie Chan’s martial arts prowess.  They do pick up another travel companion along the way, the so-called aspiring artist Monique La Roche (Cécile de France).  Phileas is not keen on having a tag-along, but she gets Lau Xing on her side when she sees what is painfully evident: that Lau Xing is not a Frenchman.  She uses this information to get Lau Xing to convince Phileas to let her tag along, wanting to see the world to improve her art beyond painting dogs playing poker (seriously).  With one other stop in Turkey where Prince Hapi (Arnold Schwarzenegger) tries to woo Monique while all four are in a hot tub (again, not making this up), they make their way to Lau Xing’s village.  Here, Phileas finds a note Lau Xing had written to his father explaining the imminent return of the Jade Buddha, which finally clues the inventor in to the fact that his valet is not who he claims.  Phileas would be mad about this forever if not for the fact that the village is attacked by Black Scorpions, and he is in need of having his life saved.  Lau Xing comes to the rescue with the help of the Ten Tigers, the secret martial arts group to which he belongs.  With the Jade Buddha secured, you would think this means the end of the movie, but no. . . .  No, they have to show us Phileas making his way back to London, unfortunately.  My negativity stems from the fact that they stumble upon the Wright Brothers (Luke Wilson and Owen Wilson) in the American Southwest, among other historical shenanigans.  There is also one last tussle with the Black Scorpions in New York, this time personally involving General Fang.  This final showdown causes them to miss the boat to England, but the one they do catch is dismantled by Phileas to construct the world’s first airplane, with the permission of the nipple-less captain (Mark Addy).  They land in front of the Academy, but Lord Kelvin claims they are too late.  He then goes on a megalomaniacal rant that is overheard by Queen Victoria (Kathy Bates), who just so happens to be in the area.  Lord Kelvin is thrown in jail, Lau Xing admits that he had been setting the clock ahead with each time zone (meaning they still have a whole day), and Phileas is named the replacement for Lord Kelvin.  The merciful end.

Probably, the less said about Around the World in 80 Days, the better, but I have this Catholic film review blog to keep up, so. . . .  So, I will talk about Phileas.  One thing that can be appreciated about him in a Christian sense is that he sees his inventions as doing the most for mankind.  Of course, he is no Jesus, but our command as Christians is to roughly adhere to such a mandate to use our gifts for others.  I will try to avoid rehashing the discussion I have had in so many reviews about how faith is not antithetical to science.  At least such can be said about Catholicism.  It is interesting, though, because Christianity is usually lumped in with the catchall known as tradition, and not usually in a positive sense.  When it comes to how much of society views what faith has to say about science, the landing spot is usually the erroneously held notion by some sects that the Bible claims that the world is only 5,000 years old, or whatever number it is they purport.  That is not the Catholic position on this specific issue.  In the film, tradition is brought up as the stance of Lord Kelvin and his allies in the Academy.  They believe that, in the late nineteenth century, everything worth discovering had been discovered.  Therefore, they look down on inventors like Phileas who might upset the natural order of things.  Not only does this not jive with Catholic teaching, it is also out of phase with a healthy relationship with God.  If we told ourselves that everything worth knowing about God has been discovered, then frankly that would be blasphemy.  From a personal and religious point of view, the infinite nature of the Almighty means that there will always be something more to discover about our Creator through prayer.  This film may be stupid, but the spirit of exploration is there, and that is something useful to adhere to in the spiritual life because it keeps faith alive.

Still, you do not need to watch Around the World in 80 Days in order to discover that spirit for yourself.  Go to Mass, read the Bible, talk to God while making pancakes, or do anything but watch this movie.  It is almost so bad that it needs to be seen to be believed, but you could just take my word for it and avoid it.