The theatrical trailer for The Forbidden Kingdom popped up on Yahoo last week, and while it looks like it offers a few things to look forward to, there's not much to get excited about. As everybody knows, it's the long-awaited collaboration between action legends Jackie Chan and Jet Li. It's a matchup many have waited a long time to see... maybe a little too long now. Like I said, there's a lot of great looking stuff in this trailer. A Jet/Jackie fight? There's really no movie without it. The lovely Liu Yifei? Hot. The white-haired assassin lady? Extra hot. But then... you've got this dorky white kid. Whaaaat?
As we learned a while back, Forbidden Kingdom's story centers on an American teen who is transported back in time to ancient China (when/where everyone apparently speaks English), and joins a crew of warriors to help free the king. It seems that a Jackie Chan/Jet Li collaboration is not awesome enough to sell a movie. You gotta bring in the American teen to make it awesome. I fear this movie is doomed. And yet, I'd be lying if I said I'm not interested in seeing it. Personally, I would rather have seen a rough-and-tumble Jet/Jackie movie set in Hong Kong, circa 1994. But nobody asked me. You can watch The Forbidden Kingdom trailer for yourself here.