Somebody told me that Jackie Chan’s Mr. Nice Guy did play locally, but I must have blinked. That’s too bad, because, seeing how it climaxes with the most gargantuan display of single-vehicle mayhem in memory, it would have been interesting to catch on the big.

Chan plays a tv chef who fatefully crosses paths with a newswoman being pursued by drug dealers, giving him excuse to manifest his trademark abilities to also slice, dice, and julienne with his hand, feet, folding chairs, garbage cans, pasta -- his usual stuff.

You know, even the hyperkinetic Mr. Chan can’t hold off time. As a result, his signature action scenes, though they’re still several mach levels quicker that what we get from Hollywood filmmakers, are slowing a bit, perhaps as much a result as his storied Knievel-ish litany of injuries as his age. So it’s a good thing that the story, which in his movies does little more than serve as connector for the inventive fight sequences, is much smoother than previously. Shot entirely in Australia, Mr. Nice Guy goes at least a little way toward addressing the double standard usually afforded him: “Yeah, the acting, story, effects, props, costumes, scenery, sound, dubbing, and lighting are cheap. But those moves!” Directed by, and featuring a cameo from, portly-but-nimble Sammo Hung (who’s appeared in 88 films, directed 34 more, and stars in the new series “Martial Arts” on CBS), Chan’s latest might disappoint the faithful, but is probably a better intro to his oeuvre for the uninitiated than his Hong Kong films. It does, however, manifest one of the more egregious examples of “product placement” seen recently: think, Pepsi Fu. C+

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