There would be nothing so depressing as seeing a supremely talented physical actor like Jackie Chan trying to top himself with each successive movie. Chan is getting older, and the outlandish (not to mention dangerous) stunts he has pulled off so casually in the past aren't going to be within his grasp forever.

But if Chan's career as a crazy-genius stuntman is on its way to reaching its natural limits (he's in his mid-40s), "Shanghai Noon" shows that he's nowhere near exhausting his potential as a charmer. "Shanghai Noon" is a goofy action western that's perfectly enjoyable for the two hours you spend watching it and, mostly, perfectly forgettable in the two hours afterward. But the memory of Chan's performance is likely to stick around a bit longer. At the very least "Shanghai Noon," with its clutch of silly but fun one-liners, gives us a glimmer of what Chan might be able to do once he chooses to (or, heaven forbid, is forced to) stop jumping onto or off moving trains, leaping off the tops of castles, swinging across gorges on ropes and so on.

Chan plays Chon Wang, a Chinese imperial guard circa 1881 who's smitten with the luminously beautiful Princess Pei Pei (Lucy Liu, in a performance that's so low-key and calmly centered that it barely registers). When the princess is kidnapped from China's Forbidden City and taken to the United States, Chon tags along with the guardsmen sent to rescue her. Traveling to Nevada by train to deliver the ransom, he meets train robber Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson) and his band of ne'er-do-well accomplices. Chon manages to derail the robbery, and he and Roy go their separate ways. Chon hooks up with a group of Crow Indians, but he and Roy meet again in a barroom brawl, after which they both become fugitives from the law, on the lam together.

Chon never forgets about saving his princess, but occasionally we do. "Shanghai Noon," director Tom Dey's feature debut, suffers from the same excesses that most contemporary action movies do -- problems that have become so commonplace that most audiences don't even notice them. The action isn't shot cleanly; it tends to be manic and cluttered, and in the train-robbery sequence in particular, as the action moves from car to car, it's impossible to tell who's going where and why. All we know -- and all we need to know, apparently -- is that a safe is about to blow. Even so, "Shanghai Noon" moves along smoothly enough. Dey and cinematographer Dan Mindel know enough to give us a clear view of Chan's stunts, which are the main attraction after all.

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