The Tuxedo is a 2002 American science fiction action comedy film directed by Kevin Donovan and starring Jackie Chan and Jennifer Love Hewitt.

The spy parody involves a special tuxedo that grants its wearer superhuman abilities. The plot surrounds a corporate terrorist who threatens to poison the United States' fresh water supply with bacteria that spills electrolytes into the blood and totally dehydrates the host. Chan found the American approach to stunts and safety restrictive and wanted to repeat a jump but was not allowed. "American films are different -- it drives me crazy," said Chan. On her first day of stunts, Jennifer Love Hewitt suffered a broken finger after being struck by one of the stunt men.

Principal photography began in September 2001 and ended in January 2002. During filming in Toronto, Chan and Love Hewitt appeared on an on-set webcam and interacted with fans.

Chan worked on The Tuxedo in between shooting The Medallion, which started before, and completed shooting later.

Soundtrack

After an initial score by Christophe Beck, John Debney was brought in to rescore the film (incorporating Beck's thematic material). Both composers ultimately had cues included in the final version.

The soundtrack album was released on October 1, 2002. It was handled by soundtrack label Varèse Sarabande, rather than DreamWorks' own in-house label DreamWorks Records, which primarily focused on rock and pop artists. It includes different cues written by the composers for the same scenes. Cues by Debney are in italics, cues by Beck in bold.

  1. Jimmy's Tux (2:50)
  2. Skateboard Chase (2:00)
  3. Mad Bike Messenger (1:04)
  4. Jimmy's Dream (:48)
  5. Main Title - "The Tuxedo" (3:01)
  6. First Mission (2:54)
  7. Swallow The Queen (2:25)
  8. Demolition (1:20)
  9. Putting on Tux (1:59)
  10. Demolition Program (1:02)
  11. Rope Fight (2:58)
  12. Rope Fight (2:14)
  13. Superhuman (1:39)
  14. Walter Strider (1:21)
  15. High Noon (:49)
  16. Banning Opens The Pods (2:29)
  17. Banning Swallows Queen (:49)
  18. Jimmy Saves Blaine (1:50)
  19. Get Up (I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine) - James Brown (3:19)

Reception

Box office

On a reported budget of $60 million, the film grossed $50.5 million in the United States. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $15 million from 3,022 theaters, ranking in second place behind Sweet Home Alabama. The film's total worldwide gross is $104.4 million. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 30 out of 100 based on reviews from 27 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times commented that "The movie is silly beyond comprehension, and even if it weren't silly, it would still be beyond comprehension" but does comment that the film has its good moments. He gave the film one and a half stars out of four. Robert Koehler of Variety magazine says that the film's central problem is the mix of Chan's actual stunts and effects, which plays against Chan's whole career and hard-core commitment to doing all of his own body-defying stunts. He notes that Hewitt "has displayed a Chan-like sweetness herself in past roles" and is disappointed that her character is "a haggling, high-strung shrew who's instantly repellent" rather than an amusing sidekick as Chan has had in other Hollywood films. Koehler also criticizes the "pallid direction", and "virtually incomprehensible plot line". American film critic Wheeler Winston Dixon described the trademark action comedy as having an "unlikely pairing" of Jennifer Love Hewitt with Chan, and noted that Chan's doing his own stunts, even in his middle age, added a "welcome touch of verisimilitude to the endless succession of doubles who normally populate such films."

Writing in the Asian Journal of Communication in 2013, academic Zheng Zhu listed the film alongside Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993) and Kiss of the Dragon (2001) as films that broke from the Western tradition of portraying Asian men as asexual, stating that while they are often featured as heroes in martial arts films, they are rarely portrayed as romantic or loving. Noting the films each show an Asian martial artist with a white female partner, Zhu states they reverse the conventional portrayal of a "dominant white knight and a submissive Oriental lady". However, he makes critiques of the portrayal of these relationships. For example, each film shows "white women play[ing] the most important role" in helping Chinese men accomplish success. Asian men, Zhu argues, are portrayed as incapable of achieving success in Western society unless they are supported by white femininity.

Home media

The film was released on DVD and VHS by DreamWorks Home Entertainment on February 25, 2003. The film also received a VCD release in some Asian areas. In February 2006, Viacom (now known as Paramount Skydance) acquired the rights to The Tuxedo and all 58 other live-action films DreamWorks had released since 1997, following its billion-dollar acquisition of the company's live-action assets. The film was released on Blu-ray for the first time by Paramount Home Entertainment on May 25, 2021. Paramount Home Entertainment later reissued it on Blu-ray on July 23, 2024. The Blu-ray version retains special features which were originally from the 2003 DVD, including "The Cutting Room Floor" segments (deleted scenes), a "Tailor Made for Jackie Chan" featurette exploring the film's production and Chan's involvement, and trailers. The film has been made available on Paramount's subscription streaming service Paramount+, as well as on its free streaming service Pluto TV. In Australia, it was also on the streaming service for the Paramount-owned broadcaster Network 10.

Novelization

A novelization of the film was released by publisher Price Stern Sloan adapted by Ellen Weiss.

See also

  • List of films featuring powered exoskeletons

References

  • Dreamworks SKG page
  • Jackie Chan interview for The Tuxedo