Vanguard

Vanguard (2020)

Runtime: 107 minutes

Directed by: Stanley Tong

Starring: Jackie Chan, Yang Yang, Lun Ai, Miya Muqi, Ruohan Xu

From: I swear I am not making this up when I say that there had to be somewhere around EIGHTEEN companies that made this.

The things you see when you feel like you must use your AMC A-List app.

I heard pretty bad things about this recent release from China from a wide scope of different sources. However, as I hadn't used my AMC A-List app in a few weeks, I don't want that money that's paid to it each month to go to waste and this fit my schedule the best, that was chosen. Besides, nothing from Jackie Chan's recent China output has been seen by me; again, that has received no shortage of negative complaints from knowledgeable people.

My reaction? It isn't unwatchable dreck... it's not even the worst picture seen by myself on the big screen the past few months (I'm looking directly at you, Shortcut). But Lord is this ever stupid. “Covert security company” Vanguard-or, to steal a line someone else here made, Team China: World Police-is led by Chan; they have to guard an accountant but realized he double-crossed someone so various nefarious figures are after him so the whole gang is in several exotic locations, including Dubai, a more traditional Middle Eastern city in a location never identified, “Africa”-inferred by the movie to be “Zambia, South Africa” as if Zambia is a city or state in South Africa instead of a completely different country-and London.

The action setpieces are usually in interesting locations or are different from the norm. That does not make it worthwhile when this has plenty of rotten CG, never looking convincing. The story is both quite generic and far-fetched; several moments are shown which would even make the Fast & Furious filmmakers go, “Oh, come on now! That is preposterous!” At least I got laughs out of the dopey moments; this includes two team members & their epic bromance, a limo w/ race car physics, someone somehow surviving catastrophic damage, the African location never being clearly identified, and seeing that this was produced by what looked to be EIGHTEEN different production companies, no lie. Only a few of those had production logos shown, otherwise that would have taken a few minutes.

Of course Jackie doesn't do much action-wise; he is an old man and as it's a relief he can still walk with all he's done to his body, so no complaints with that. I can complain, though, about the quality of this nonsense.