Boston teenager Jason Tripitikas (Michael Angarano) loves kung-fu movies. He watches bootlegs of them constantly, while posters of all the major Asian stars line his bedroom walls as if they were wallpaper. But after a run-in with a local group of thugs sends him falling from a storefront rooftop, the virtually friendless kid whose only outlet is fantasy somehow finds himself suddenly transported to ancient China.

Jet Li and Jackie Chan square off in Lionsgate Films' The Forbidden Kingdom

It is here Jason finds himself saddled with the difficult of returning a magnificent golden staff to the fabled Monkey King (Jet Li), freeing him from the malevolent clutches of the evil Jade Warlord (Collin Chou). He finds help with the task in the form of the whimsical drunken kung fu master Lu Yan (Jackie Chan), the revenge-seeking young woman Golden Sparrow (Yifei Liu) and a mysterious stranger known simply as Silent Monk (also played by Li).

Facing perils beyond imagining, Jason learns true courage lies from within, not in how well you can throw a punch or unleash a flying scissor kick. With his new teachers by his side, the once timid young man finds strength he never knew he possessed, all his travails leading to a final confrontation with the Jade Warlord and his minions that could very well decide the fate of the entire world.

On a certain level, it’s hard to work up too much animosity towards The Forbidden Kingdom. It moves well, has some magnificent martial arts action sequences (choreographed by the magnificent Woo-Ping Yuen) and never once proves to be even remotely boring. For adults, director Rob Minkoff’s (The Lion King, Stuart Little) is a moderately engaging enough time-passer. For 12-year-old boys, the darn thing might just be an outright sensation worthy of repeat viewings.

The thing is, the teaming of two action superstars like Li and Chan for the very first time should be something to celebrate, not just moderately tolerate with a semi-forced smile. Worse, John Fusco’s (Young Guns, Hidalgo) script is brazenly supercilious, dumbing down Chinese culture and myths to such an extent it’s almost dumfounding. Large portions of the picture are hideously silly (and not in a good way), all of it centered around a truly obnoxious central character so brutally annoying and toxically unappealing he made me continually wince in mental pain.

What I really don’t get is why one would put two fantastically amazing performers like the two headliners here and then have them grovel in support of a teenage character as poorly developed (and portrayed) as this one is. That just makes no sense to me. This it the teaming martial arts fans have been salivating in anticipation of for decades, and the best filmmakers can come up with is this, a reasonably well-made if poorly written combination of Star Wars and The Hidden Fortress?

As much as I am railing against Angarano here, I’d still like to give the young man the benefit of the doubt. As fantastic as he was in David Gordon Green’s Snow Angels, and as much as I liked him in both Seabiscuit and The Lords of Dogtown, watching him fail so miserably in this role is a bit of a shock and a mystery. But he’s terrible, and whether the culprit is Fusco’s script or whether it is the actor is just so miscast he couldn’t have possibly given a decent performance anyway, watching him in this is like listening to a professor skirt their nails across a chalkboard. 

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh. Like I said, the action scenes are pretty solid, and the initial battle between Li and Chan is suitably thrilling. But from the dorky Lucas-level dialogue to the West Side Story goons trolling the streets of Boston there is just too much wrong here for me to admit to having anything close to a good time. For me, even with its two superstars facing off for the very first time, The Forbidden Kingdom is one martial arts battle I could probably have done without.

Film Rating: êê  (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  The Forbidden Kingdom Theatrical Trailer