The spy next door review

When even the out-take bloopers over the final credits are weak, you know you've got a pretty under-par jackie chan movie on your hands. Chan plays Bob, who is shyly romancing his single-mum neighbour Gillian, played by Amber Valletta. She thinks he is a pen salesman, and her kids hate him for being boring. Actually, he is an international spy from the Chinese intelligence services on loan to the CIA, and he has to save Gillian's kids from fiendish Russkie villains. Good-natured stuff, of course; Chan's stunts are still impressive and he's never anything other than likable. But that "thinking" expression he does before saying an emotional line – well, you can hear the acting creak.Jackie Chan was once Asian cinema’s greatest special effect: a one man fireball of high octane chopsocky action – all rapid fists, scissor legs and spinning body parts. Now 55, the old gray mare, as they say, just ain’t what she used to be. Those famously elastic limbs don’t move so fast no more and the lickety-split pace has slowed to (at best) a brisk drive in a souped-up gopher.

Chan made the transition from Hong Kong to Hollywood in the mid 90s, and although he returns to the motherland every so often to make a home grown flick things have never been the same. American tripe like The Tuxedo, The Medallion and Shanghai Knights have increasingly shaped the once great star of Drunken Master and Police Story into a veritable kung fool. Jingle All the Way director Brian LeVant’s flimsy family flick The Spy Next Door is the latest in a seemingly endless array of embarrassments.