Top: Roy and Chon face a hail of gunfire in Shanghai Noon. Above: Ditto for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

The level of humour never rises above that of its title in Shanghai Noon, a play-on-words that "Mad Magazine" staffers surely brainstormed at some point--and I wouldn't have it any other way. The picture is so juvenile it makes the 1985 western spoof Rustler's Rhapsody look pretentious by comparison, which is a major selling point in my book, for comedies these days tend to be cynical, scatological affairs--in short, Porky's redux, everything but good-natured.

If its innocuousness ultimately earns Shanghai Noon the dreaded label of "family entertainment," so be it. (Here is what I scribbled on a piece of paper after seeing the film: "Jackie Chan's doing his thang and it comes off as downright innovative in light of crap like Road Trip.")

The year is 1881 and Jackie Chan plays Chon Wang, one of the Imperial Guards ordered to deliver the ransom for kidnapped Princess Pei Pei (Lucy Liu) and retrieve her from the Chinese mining camps of Carson City, Nevada. En route in America, his uncle is killed in a train robbery that leaves Jackie stranded and in the company of laconic cowpoke Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson), the "good" thief who had no part in the homicide. I'm getting ahead of myself: before they join forces, Jackie defeats armed Crow warriors with his bare hands and marries into an Indian tribe.

There's fortune in Roy's eyes as Wang (whose full name sounds like John Wayne, "a terrible cowboy name!" exclaims Roy) tells him of the 100,000 in gold coins waiting to be exchanged for the princess, and so he volunteers to set our Jackie on course and instruct him in the way of the West. (I won't belabour that Shanghai Noon glibly trumpets assimilation over tradition--the movie sides with Roy as he encourages Wang to abandon his Eastern code of ethics--but let it be duly noted.) Soon, they have not so much hatched a plot as stumbled upon one to free Pei Pei, leading to a whopper of a Mexican standoff in a church. (Shades of John Woo.)

Speaking of Woo, he had the right idea when he commented in a recent interview for "Premiere", "Some actors are good in slow motion, some not. Some you want to see them fast, like Jackie Chan: Pow! Pow! Pow! That's his real character. He's just like a tiger. There's no reason to use slow motion." About the only directorial misstep first-timer Tom Dey makes in the requisite fight scenes (the first reason to see any Jackie Chan flick) is the occasional half-speed flourish--untrained fighters require camera tricks to appear graceful (would Ralph Macchio have gotten by in The Karate Kid without them?), but not Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Bruce Lee, Sonny Chiba, etc.

As with Jackie's other English-language pictures (and the American versions of his Hong Kong exports), the big, prop-dependent brawls could and should be longer, though this time around their brevity might be on account of Jackie's age and not studio ignorance. (Miramax, from what I understand, is under the impression that we prefer car chases and big stunts to martial arts combat--that's why they recut Operation Condor to emphasize grandiose action over the kung fu, nearly invalidating the presence of Jackie in the process.)

Otherwise, Dey has crafted a tasty matinee snack; if Shanghai Noon doesn't have any lasting impact, it won't cause indigestion, either. The amusingly anachronistic and nonconfrontational screenplay--the film owes great debts to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Blazing Saddles--occasionally goes slack (as to be expected from the writers of the meandering Lethal Weapon 4), but Dey and his cannily cast performers always find their footing. Owen Wilson, possessed of a warm, soothing drawl, is the most charmingly goofball he's been since debuting in Bottle Rocket. Nimble Jackie seems much more at ease with him than he was with abrasive Chris Tucker in the excremental Rush Hour. And Liu, as the prototypical Jackie Chan heroine/damsel in distress, is adequately regal and sexy. Okay, fine, really sexy.-Bill Chambers