Phileas Fogg is a dreamer, who hopes that one day his inventions will take him to new heights. From motorized cars, to flying machines at the turn of the 19th century, Fogg is most definitely living in the future rather than the present. While members of the scientific gentlemens' club that Fogg wishes to head up to revolutionize England is most definitely living in the pass, feeling that all the discoveries in science have already been made. But when Fogg meats up with Passepartout, a Chinese thief who has just stolen a valuable jade Buddha from the bank of England, Fogg’s life is about to change. Because Passepartout needs to find away to get back to China with the jade he encourages a bet when Fogg makes the claim he can travel around the world in 80 days. Shortly after leaving the suspicion that Fogg took the bet because he helped in the Robbery of the jade and needed an excuse to get away sets in. This sets the gentlemens' club against them as they now want to stop and arrest Fogg for the theft. So the eccentric London inventor and his traveling companion began their journey, using a variety of means of transportation, like boats, trains, balloons, elephants, etc. Along the way, Passepartout uses his amazing martial arts abilities to defend Fogg from the many dangers they face. Their path from London and back includes stops in Paris, Turkey, India, China and the United States of America.

Why does Disney feel that they need to dumb down every movie they ever do, did they not find out when they produce sophisticated humor and drama like in Pirates of the Caribbean people will flock to the theatres to see their movies. Less than a year later it does not seem that Disney learned that lesson as Around the World in 80 Days almost seems to thumb its noses at its audiences as it seems to be aimed for the intellect of a ten year old. It’s insulting how little the producers at Disney think of their audiences so much so that they can’t make a movie without it being overly cutesy and like licking a sugar cube. The original of this movie is so much better and they should have never tried to make a remake of the classic. Why can’t they remake bad movies instead of insisting on butchering good ones? I did think Jackie Chan did put in one of his better performances in awhile, as they didn’t saddle him with a gimmick to explain his martial arts skills like in the Medallion and the atrocity The Tuxedo. The movie does deliver the occasional laugh and is not a total waste, I just find it a shame that they seemed to put so little effort into making the movie rather trying to survive on clichés and sub plots that Disney movies always revert to when its obvious they have run out of ideas. The kids might like it, but for the most part plan to be dissatisfied as the movie is only mediocre at best, and marginally bad at its worst moments.
2 stars out of 5