Around the World in 80 Days wants to be a globe-trotting comedy about a man who bets he can circle the Earth in eighty days. Instead it settles for a chase movie with a globe attached. Jackie Chan plays Lau Xing, a thief who steals a Jade Buddha from the Bank of England and takes refuge with Phileas Fogg, played by Steve Coogan. Fogg hires him as his valet, giving him the name Passepartout, and the two set off across the world while a British officer named General Fang pursues them.
Frank Coraci directs from a script by David N. Titcher, David Benullo and David Andrew Goldstein. The film is loosely based on Jules Verne’s 1873 novel, but it throws out the book’s logic for jokes. The chase through Paris, Istanbul and India moves fast, but the film never commits fully to its own version of events.
The Chase Through Europe
The early hours work best. Fogg meets Monique La Roche, played by Cécile de France, in Paris, and she joins the trip after fleeing in a hot-air balloon. The chase scenes are energetic, and the mix of action and comedy keeps things moving. Ewen Bremner plays Inspector Fix, who trails the pair across Europe, and Jim Broadbent plays Lord Kelvin, the head of the Royal Academy of Science whose position Fogg must win back.
The Middle Stretch Stumbles
Once the trip reaches India, the film loses focus. The source text cuts off mid-sentence describing the Black Scorpions, the extremist group behind the theft, and the chase through India. That lack of resolution shows in the final stretch, where the film rushes to its ending without settling its central conflict. Ian McNeice, Roger Hammond and David Ryall appear in supporting roles, and Mark Addy plays the steamer captain while Richard Branson appears as the balloon man and John Cleese plays a grizzled sergeant.
The Problem With Time
The film’s biggest problem is also its simplest one: it cheats the premise. Fogg’s wager is built on a careful calculation of time, distance and transport. This film throws that calculation away whenever the joke demands it. A chase scene in a hot-air balloon, a chase through Istanbul and a chase across India all feel like separate films bolted together rather than a single connected story.
“Let your imagination soar.”
That tagline sums up the problem. The film asks viewers to forget the rules of the wager entirely and watch the spectacle instead.
The Cast Carries the Load
Jackie Chan carries the film physically, throwing himself into fight scenes that ground the otherwise loose plotting. Steve Coogan plays Fogg as eccentric and clever, though the script gives him less to do as the story progresses. Cécile de France holds her own as Monique, a painter who joins the trip and helps keep the pair safe.
Jim Broadbent’s Lord Kelvin deserves particular credit. He plays a man of tradition who must choose between his position and a man of ambition, and the film leans on that tension even as it abandons the wager itself.
A Mixed Bag
Around the World in 80 Days is a film of bright ideas and weak follow-through. The chase scenes are fun, the cast is strong, and the premise is genuinely funny. But the film never commits to its own rules, and that leaves the ending feeling rushed and hollow.
On its own terms, it fails. As a chase comedy, it succeeds only sometimes.
4.9 of 10.
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