Jet Li and Jackie Chan in “The Forbidden Kingdom.”

Seen one martial arts fantasy film, seen them all. Or, at least, that is what this film would have you believe. The first time paring of martial arts specialists, Jet Li and Jackie Chan, would seem like a rather obvious success. Monotony and structural weakness say otherwise, “The Forbidden Kingdom” does nothing if not disappoint. Throwing every ingredient you have seen before into one huge leaky cauldron, and making use of the sharply timed skills of two uncompromised legends makes no difference when it is very clear from the yawn-inspiring opening scenes just how stale these ingredients are. The film is a formulaic yet satirical look at the extreme seriousness most martial art films have, and its blatant attempts at humour are obvious and cringe worthy. There is no attempt at creating something fresh or new, and if there was, it could not have been concealed any better. A lower than average take on the overplayed juvenile cross-cultural-cross-time adventure idea, “The Forbidden Kingdom” should be taken literally, stay away at all costs.

It borrows heavily from other martial arts films, cinematic homages perhaps, which may be part of its intended charm, but charm it does not. Jason Tripitikas (Michael Angarano), a typical martial-arts loving kid from Boston, visits a Chinatown pawn store owned by an ancient Chinese man (Jackie Chan, aged with prosthetics). A rather greasy throwback to the 50’s and his gang force Jason to assist them in robbing the store, but everything goes wrong. Jason conveniently ends up with a magical staff in his hands, and just like that he is teleported to ancient China with one mission and one mission only, return the staff to its rightful owner, “The Monkey King” (a particularly furry Jet Li), as frozen as an immortal stone statue can be. Jason teams up with a drunken vagabond named Lu Yan (Jackie Chan), an all-white silent monk (Jet Li) and an orphan determined to get revenge against those responsible for her parents’ deaths who calls herself ”Golden Sparrow” (Liu Yifei). Together they prepare to ensure that the prophesy of the “Monkey King” is fulfilled and the immortal Jade Warlord (Collin Chou) ceases to gain power of the staff which would mean the triumph of Evil over Good, and we wouldn’t want that… It either sounds too familiar or too wearisome, either way it does not manage to maintain any sense of captivation throughout its long-winded running time.

All very conventional in premise, the execution is surprisingly uninteresting and often inconsequential as well, and the fight scenes leave much to be desired. Practicality aside, the uninventive choreography does not even hint at the level of greatness seen in films such as “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” But it would be unfair to compare this Rob Minkoff (“Stuart Little,” “The Haunted Mansion”) directed film to Ang Lee’s epic masterpiece. One thing they do share is the logically unexplainable gravity defying sequences, which were awe-inspiring the first few times they were used in film, but now come across as inferior imitations.

The majority of the film was shot in China, on location or in studios, and the visuals are, for the most part, crisp and striking, along with the costumes and an overall production design that is note-worthily fantastic – but the way in which the story unfolds detracts from the visuals, and the undeniable charisma of Jackie Chan and Jet Li is completely wasted. Jackie Chan gives the most rewarding performance of the film, however, and often makes you forget that you are bearing witness to utter drivel. Michael Angarano is completely uninteresting and dull, and gives white martial arts obsessed teenage nerds everywhere a bad name.

With an overload of clichés and generic stereotypes, the film wants to be nothing more than an almost-satisfying film that is bound to impress juvenile viewers, or ones that have not experienced the hypnotism of previous films in which Jet Li and Jackie Chan are able to display their magic to its fullest extent – and their collaboration is below par. Control and order, key to any martial arts battle, would have resulted in a cohesively constructed film, and not just a culmination of wasted performances and less than sufficient distractions.

Fatac Rating: **

The Forbidden Kingdom. Directed by Rob Minkoff. Written by John Fusco. Cinematography by Peter Pau. Music by David Buckley. Starring: Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Michael Angarano, Bingbing Li, Yifei Liu and Collin Chou Running Time: 133 minutes. Age Restriction: PG 13. USA 2008. Rating out of five stars.