Director: Stanley Tong
Notable Cast: Jackie Chan, Yang Yang, Ai Lun, Miya
Muqi, Yang Jian Ping, Zhu Zhengting, Jackson Lou, Xu Ruohan, Rahim Achabbakhe,
Eyad Hourani
When Kung Fu Yoga came out in 2017, it quickly
dispelled the notion that perhaps, just perhaps, the combination of director
Stanley Tong and star Jackie Chan could recapture the lunacy of Supercop
and First Strike. It was a mess of a film, but it made some impressive
box office dollars, so why not have them team up again for another massive
international action-adventure flick? This is why we have Vanguard, the
latest hollow attempt at mass appeal riding on the coattails of past success.
With over 10 minutes of credits at the end, the film is 90 more minutes of
sheer outlandish action, punctuated by bright colors and patchy CGI, that aims
to move so quickly from set piece to set piece that its audience might forget
that there should be a movie underneath all of the glitz and glam. What’s left
is a film that is about as effective as a long commercial in terms of
storytelling quality. That presents a problem if its viewer wants more than
just misguided style.
Jackie Chan, playing Jackie Chan...err...Tang Huanting, leads a
private military force called Vanguard and when a high-profile
businessman finds himself the target of a terrorist group and mercenaries named
Arctic Wolves, they will have to come to the rescue to save him, his daughter,
and uncover a larger conspiracy at the heart of the terrorist plot.
If one were to distill the basic concept of an international
action film, one might easily come up with the synopsis above and, let’s be
honest here, the outline that represents the script to Vanguard is
hardly impressive. The team representing the titular company of high-tech
gadget wielding “good” mercenaries is meant to be an ensemble, with Chan as the
leader who still gets in a few solid action set pieces, but in doing so the
film rarely gets past broad stroke and bland caricatures. One character gets a
generic dad subplot and the other gets the flimsiest romantic subplot possible,
but the rest - including Jackie - are stock shadows of plot points. And what
little is there for characters is so uninspired that their success or failure
in the conspiracy plot is made completely irrelevant. Even if they weren't
superhuman fighters with gadgets out the ass that couldn’t lose if they tried,
I couldn’t care less if they did. The charm of the cast is lost in the void of
gloss and hyper-reality of the style and “storytelling” presented. That says
nothing about the villains, a series of appallingly generic stereotypes that
even the Hollywood system might be concerned with these days.
Of course, the script and characters are just a means to an
end to get to the action of the film. Now, for those action junkies who just
need a hit of the biggest and most outlandishly silly action sequences this
side of Paul WS Anderson, Vanguard will suffice. In a meager defense of
the film, it delivers A LOT of action. Quality is not of concern though when
the quantity is this high. The film only uses its dialogue, characters, and
plot to move from one set piece to the next. The hand-to-hand combat is decent
enough, perhaps too flourished with editing to have any real impact, but there
is some fun choreography and stunt work to appease the HK fan in me. The rest
is spectacle for the sake of spectacle. Remember those terrible-looking CGI
animals in Kung Fu Yoga? They’re back and as perplexing as ever with
lions, sharks, hyenas, and birds. How many vehicles do we need to use?
Motorcycles, jet skis, boats, cars, car boats, gold cars, and they even manage
to get a jetpack in there for a character named Condor. It’s just a shame that
Stanley Tong and company seem more impressed with trying to fake out the
audience with CGI than actually delivering thrills in the action. Otherwise,
this might have been far more fun.
Yet, in one of the most eye-rolling ways possible, Vanguard
provides just enough entertainment to vaguely disguise itself as a soft
propaganda machine. Do we get to talk about how Captain China is better than
Captain America? How about how the head of the Dubai police is married to a
Chinese woman because they are the most beautiful? Not to mention, the film
starts and ends with the worldwide celebration of Chinese New Year in one of
the most obvious attempts at playing to the CNY crowd in theaters (had it
arrived when it was supposed to prior to COVID.) Although most of it is played
for fun, it is notable just how obvious this approach is in the script and
performances during the film. No real judgment, I grew up on some of the most
jingoistic material from the Hollywood system in the 80s, it just struck me as
humorous.
Vanguard is silly, action-packed, and loaded to the
gills in sheer, shiny spectacle. If that’s what you want from your films, then
by all means please consume with vigor. However, the hollow characters and
lacking attempts at providing anything but style makes for a sugary, but an unfulfilling cinematic meal. There is so little heart and weight to anything in
the film that even the thrills of its ludicrous action set pieces fail to
inspire much excitement.
Hopefully, Stanley Tong and Jackie Chan aim for more quality
on their next projects.
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