I thought I remembered reading somewhere that Jet Li was done with martial arts epics. Of course, the term “martial arts epic” is open to interpretation, Li was in War last year and it had martial arts in it, and he’s surely going to do that kung fu as the new mummy in The Mummy 3 later this year. So, maybe he was just waiting for the right opportunity and then retire, like his long awaited team-up with fellow master of cinema karate Jackie Chan. While not exactly the perfect movie, The Forbidden Kingdom is nonetheless a satisfactory adventure movie.

You can call it The Neverending Story of the Karate Kid in the Jade Emperor’s Court. But since that title was too long, they went with Forbidden Kingdom. The tale starts in the present day as a teenager obsessed with kung fu (Michael Angarano), falls in with a bad element that makes him help them knock over a pawn store in Chinatown. One of the items in the shop is a magic staff that takes the kid, Jason, back in time to Ancient China. There, with the help of a drunken immortal (Chan), a silent monk (Li) and a vengeance seeking archer (Yifei Liu), Jason will return the staff to its rightful owner: the Monkey King (also Li), so that he can bring down the Jade Warlord (Collin Chou).

The Forbidden Kingdom is actually very easy to like; it follows the same formula as a lot of adventure films but glues it all together with some awesome kung fu. The fight scenes are the best part of the movie, that is outside of Chan and Li’s married couple like bickering. But when the two of them fight each other it’s pure perfection; Li’s stoic grace and Chan’s drunken master are a good fit for each other. Michael Angarano has gotten some good buzz for his turn in the indie film Snow Angels and he actually does a fairly descent job here. He could have easily been an annoying brat, Macchio-like if you will, but fortunately he’s someone you can get behind.

Li and Chan do their jobs and sell the action and the adventure, but unfortunately most of the rest of The Forbidden Kingdom is horribly pedestrian. Sorry, to say but the hero’s journey is getting kind of old, especially when the hero character doesn’t turn out all that heroic. This, combined with a confused tone, make for a pretty uneven movie. On the one hand you have Li mugging it up as the Monkey King and on the other you have an old man being shot in cold blood during a mugging. There’s a dark subplot of families being killed and revenge being plotted and then Li’s monk takes a whiz on Chan’s drunk.

But when the film’s focus is on the good versus evil kung fu action, it manages to be entertaining enough to be worth sitting through. Although it’s rather typical of Chan’s more recent Hollywood fare, an action/comedy, buddy quest picture, it’s a little better than average due to the fact that the buddy is Jet Li. Like the same way The Odd Couple worked, The Forbidden Kingdom cruises along thanks to the universal language of differences in personality.