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Once you accept the idea of this Disney rehash of Jules Verne’s classic as an unexciting, unfunny Jackie Chan action comedy, Around the World in 80 Days makes sense. Verne’s hero, Victorian-era inventor Phileas Fogg (Steve Coogan, excellent in a lost cause), gets demoted here to the position of sidekick to his valet, Passepartout (Chan), and Fogg’s circumnavigation of the globe becomes a cover for the latter’s attempt to return a stolen Buddha statuette to his Chinese village. The grafting of the second mission onto the first might have worked, in movie terms, if the relationship between Fogg and Passepartout had been at all compelling. But director Frank Coraci and the screenwriters are so concerned with disavowing any homoerotic attraction between the pair that they neglect to give them with any other reason to team up. Strung together with half-hearted CGI interludes, Around the World works no better as a Disney fantasy travelogue than as a buddy movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger as a lustful Turkish prince is the most visible of the several guest stars, none of whom elevates the film. (120 minutes)
BY CHRIS FUJIWARA
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