Stardom only seems as heritable as the family silver. For every Michael Douglas, there’s a John Drew Barrymore. Somewhere in between, there’s a Jaycee Chan, son of Jackie.
It wouldn’t be fair to blame a man for not being his father — you’re not Jackie Chan, either — if “Double Trouble” didn’t attempt to ape the old man’s every trademark. It’s a tiresome heist caper that pits Chan the younger, as a museum security guard, against an art thief (Vivian Dawson) whose two ravishing female minions (Jessica C. and Shoko) never hesitate to hit below the belt.
Jaycee has Jackie’s goggle-eyed response to being punched. He can do the same cartwheeling limbs during a drawn-out fall off a high precipice, and he can mimic Dad’s ability to get up from that fall faster than Wile E. Coyote. Jaycee Chan isn’t notably bad at any of this — it’s just that we’ve seen it done before, and done better.
Chan is further burdened by an irretrievably cut-rate production, with badly choreographed action sequences played against a rear projection of Taiwan’s tourist attractions. The script peters out into long stretches of weak banter between Chan and his accidental sidekick (Xia Yu), who’s incompetent but endearing — or is it the other way round? No matter — “Double Trouble” won’t inspire much thought beyond, perhaps, the desire to rent an old Jackie Chan movie.