It’s the little things in life. Like when you’re thinking about a specific song you love and suddenly it comes on the car radio. Or when you’re shopping and every single aisle is packed, but then a store clerk opens up a new one just as you walk up and you’re in and out in two minutes.
These little things may not make life great, but they make it bearable. The same principle of incremental joy applies to Disney’s newest, “Around the World in 80 Days,” directed by Frank Coraci, who also directed “The Waterboy” in 1998.
Based loosely on the book by Jules Verne, the plot follows Phileas Fogg (Steven Coogan), a crackpot scientist who bets his life’s passion of inventing against his ability to circumvent the world in 80 days or less. If he succeeds, he will be made into the new minister of science at the Royal Academy of Science. If he fails, he must never invent again.
Fogg is accompanied by his valet, Passepartout (Jackie Chan) and an incorrigible French girl Monique La Roche, played by a fresh face of Hollywood Cecile De France.
Disney repeatedly utilizes several classic practices the corporation seems to have carefully sculpted into a pattern of ruthless overkill. I’m surprised Disney hasn’t patented it.
The bad guy, for instance, Lord Kelvin (Jim Broadbent) is ridiculously sinister. Not only is he after our heroes, but he throws quills at his cronies, a gag that never should have begun.
Another overkill is the sheer number of fight scenes.
Yes, we understand that the screenwriter, David N. Titcher, has bastardized Verne’s original plot. Yes, we understand that Passepartout is a Chinese bank thief instead of a French butler, and is consequently on an outrageous (and pretty pointless) quest to return a jade Buddha to his village.
But no, not every single stop along the journey needs to be accompanied by a Mortal Kombat-esque fight sequence lasting 10 minuts or more.
The only thing Titcher seems to have marginally retained from the original story is the relationship between the scientist, the valet, and the love interest. The interaction between these three is the saving grace of the film.
Coogan is utterly convincing as a coldly arrogant and socially challenged aristocrat whose clumsiness and awkward nervousness are appropriately endearing. Chan is typecast, as usual, but thankfully in this film, it fits. La Roche is charming as the sassy French girl the scientist inevitably falls for.
Their tag team dialogue is wonderfully executed and their comedic timing is impeccable.
The character of Fix, a private detective who follows the trio around the globe with the intention of arresting them for bank robbery, has been completely destroyed by dully repetitive physical gags. The only people who would be impressed by seeing Inspector Fix (Ewen Bremner) fall out of a train/cart/building/balcony is America’s kindergarteners, and even then it’s iffy.
The movie is full of cameos: Macy Gray, Rob Schneider, Owen Wilson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Luke Wilson to name a few.
Schwarzenegger portrays an Arabian prince named Hapi. Disregarding his frighteningly large hair and painful attempt at an accent, the performance itself is a car crash. It’s horrific, but you can’t look away. When his segment finally ends, it leaves the audience with a deep feeling of shame. Not because he is the leader of this state, although there is that, but because he was just so bad.
On the other side of the equator, the cameos by Luke and Owen Wilson as the Wright brothers are delightfully tongue-in-cheek and breathes wind into this waterlogged ship’s sails.
While “Around the World in 80 Days” runs for more than two hours, it is fast-paced enough that young children will be entertained and sophisticated enough that older children will sit through it.
If you’re looking for a typical Disney movie to curl up to, “Around the World” is a neatly packaged, PG deal. You have exotic adventure, sweet romance, and unique special effects all bundled together to make a package, that while not being great, is at least mildly amusing and does, as promised, take you around the world in 80 days.