Rumour has it that veteran chop-socky director Gordon Chan cut over half an hour of footage out of The Medallion mere weeks before release, leaving the movie at a parsimonious 88 minutes long. Sadly, he seems to have binned the wrong parts since he's left in all the inept plotting, dodgy action and Julian Sands.
If that isn't enough, there's Lee Evans' excruciating performance - the cinematic equivalent of tinfoil on a new filling - and with any luck the last gasp of a movie career that was never meant to be.
Add to that the fact that Jackie Chan is now engaging in precisely the kind of wire-work and sub Matrix flo-mo-phooey that he had successfully avoided for so long, and you have that rare thing, a movie almost totally devoid of any discernable quality: filmic flatus.