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This largely unwatchable US take on a Chinese martial arts movie is notable only for the first on-screen pairing of Jackie Chan and Jet Li, and only the most ardent fans of those actors need bother watching Rob Minkoff's insipid and largely unspectacular effort.

Minkoff was a strange choice for such a project - his resume was notable for children friendly films such as Stuart Little 1 and 2 and The Lion King. Perhaps this film was aimed more at the child market, although if it was I'm not sure whether it is any more successful than it is to adult audiences. The action scenes, choreographed by the legendary Woo-ping Yuen (he of Crouching Tiger, The Matrix and Kill Bill fame) hold your interest, although I have to say they are neither as inventive or elegant as in his previous work. The rest of the film is just abominable though. The plot, or lack of it, is simply dire - it reads as though someone scribbled it down on a napkin in a bar one evening. It involves an American kid who is magically transported to a forbidden kingdom in order to return a magical staff to an immortal stone-entombed monkey king. Got that? Good.

The acting I have to say doesn't hold much water either. Jackie Chan is a great screen presence but he is playing a drunk in this and it just means his delivery is even more affected than usual. In fact I couldn't really take it. Li is fine, he doesn't do much at all really. The rest of the cast are unremarkable.

People will either like this movie based on the action scenes and forgive the in-between nonsense or will, like me, expect a film that is basically trying to get by on action scenes alone to better have some pretty spectacular one or else. Well this didn't and the "else" was me walking out after an hour.