Mr. Wydey's Film Guide Letter J

The Jackal (1997) has Bruce 'Wimpy' Willis in the lead of a remake of Frederick Forsyth's The Day of the Jackal moved to the period after Soviet communism collapsed. The MVD, helped by an ancient Sid Poitier of the FBI, went after a Russian gangster and he was killed by a female MVD agent when he resisted arrest. So his brother in Helsinki declared war on the MVD and the FBI. He recruited Bruce 'Wimpy' Willis to go to the United States for a major hit.
   MVD operatives were being killed and the name 'The Jackal' came out of an interrogation. Very little was know about him but an IRA scumbag (Richard Gere with an uncertain Belfast accent) was recruited out of prison and a Basque terrorist, with whom both the scumbag and the Jackal had history, was tracked down for information.
   The target in the US was thought to be the head of the FBI. The Jackal used the guy who built the rig for his fancy gun for target practice; which gave the FBI a lead. The Jackal and the scumbag came face to face at a marina at Chicago. A Russian embassy official in league with the Jackal was busted. Agent Witherspoon of the FBI screwed up and got himself and the female MVD major killed.
   The IRA scumbag decided the target was the First Lady. Mucho shooting with the big gun but no dead First Lady thanks to Mr. Poitier. Jackal & scumbag had another eyeball moment in the Washington Metro system, where the Jackal was shot by both the scumbag's Basque ex-girlfriend and the scumbag himself. The IRA scumbag got away with a cosmetic shoulder wound and Mr. Poitier let him walk at the end.
   Lt. Matheson of the TV series Crusade (q.v.) made a brief appearance as a SWAT guy at the assassination attempt on the First Lady before going on to join the crew of Excalibur.

Jack Hunter and the Star of Heaven (2008) Jack Hunter is involved in a big shoot-out when a real bad guy is broken out of custody. The Russian Mr. Litman is given 2 days to retrieve The Eye from Turkey. Jack's government employer sends him there with his old mate Nadia, who used to go out with Fuad, the son of a dealer who sold a box containing The Eye. Jack & Nadia get nothing from the dealer but the Russians go in shooting.
   The guy who bought the box is dead so Jack & the Russians race to find the widow and Jack & Co. are busted by the Turkish police for reckless driving. Jack has to admit to Nadia that he's working for Liz of the NSA, who gets him released. Nadia talks to the widow in a convent, Jack & Co. head for Konya but they fall into a Russian trap.
   Fuad offers Litman a deal to keep Nadia alive. Litman gets The Eye and Fuad gets double-crossed. Jack gets The Eye off Litman but not The Iris, another part of an ancient laser weapon. Fuad makes another deal and ends up dead.
   Litman uses the weapon on his employer and the cavalry sent in by Liz, melting rock with the laser. But a total eclipse of the Sun cuts off the laser's power source. Nadia chucks the weapon into some lava and Jack does the same with Litman. Then everyone left alive goes on holiday.

Jackie Chan's First Strike (1996) is a bit like James Bond with someone along the lines of Sammo Law playing the lead; i.e. lots of stunts and kung fu stuff, and fight sequences calculated to get the audience laughing their heads off. The CIA gets Hong Kong cop Jackie to watch a woman take a trip to Ukraine, where she is lifted by a strike force. Jackie follows her into the snowy wilds.
   Bad guys are buying the guts of a Russian missile. The Militia goes in and gets shot up. Jackie is involved in a snow-chase and he ends up taking a dive into a freezing lake. The FSB rescues him and gets him to look for a Chinese, CIA-trained arms dealer. A trip to Australia in a Russian sub next!
   Jackie meets the bad guy's sister, Annie, who works at an aquarium. Her brother, the bad guy, gets her to hide a bomb in the shark pool. Annie isn't please to learn that Jackie is a cop. The bad guy brother tells Jackie that Gregor, the FSB guy, is his employer, so Jackie quits. So he's framed for murdering Annie's dad. The elder brother gets him out of a major scrap with the younger brother and his allies.
   Annie is grabbed by Gregor to make his deal happen; cue another battle in the streets and in the shark pool. The bad guys shoot up the aquarium, causing a deluge, Jackie pursues them in a stolen car and drives onto their boat, and everything ends with indecent haste, as if a big bit has been chopped out of the film. So cue a selection of bloopers to show that some of the stunts went wrong and Mr. Chan didn't come out of them unscathed at times. Great stuff!

Jaws 2 (1978) An underwater photographer's camera captured his fatal encounter with a shark. As before, Amity Island was enjoying its tourists when the diver's boat and the were found. A kid larking about had a near miss with the shark. A water skier and the woman driving her boat weren't so lucky. A chewed orca turned up on the beach. A lady expert wouldn't commit herself. As usual, the mayor didn't want to know about a shark attack.
   Sheriff Brody found the corpse of the woman who had been driving the boat, which she had blown up while fighting the shark. Brody got Mike, his older son, a job ashore to keep him out of his boat then he upset the town council with a false alarm while lurking in his shark tower. The pictures from the diver's camera showed a shark, the town council refused to see it and they sacked Brody.
   Both of Brody's kids went boating. A diver had a near miss with the shark and arrived at the surface with the bends. The shark attacked a sailboat, knocked a kid into the water and ate him. His terrified girlfriend told Brody about the shark. The shark attacked more boats and the stupid kids rammed one another and Mike was almost eaten.
   A helicopter found the kids but the shark ate it! Brody found the sorry-assed survivors but he ran the police launch aground at a lighthouse. He snagged the power cable while messing about and he finished the shark off by feeding it the cable. And highly inflammable it turned out to be!

Jekyll and Hyde starring Sir Maurice Micklewhite got 2 stars and a diamond in the Daily Mail Weekend magazine. Robert Stevenson must have been revolving in his grave a high speed while this version of his story was showing but the transformation scenes, with Dr. J's hair retracting into his inflating, mobile scalp, are a real hoot! And so is the shock-horror ending!

The Jewel of the Nile (1985) is a daft adventure in which romantic novelist Joan (Kathleen Turner) gets fed up of sailing round the world with Jack (Michael Douglas). She can't finish her current book but she accepts an invitation to go down the Nile and write the life story of Omar, a would-be Middle East dictator. Jack's old partner, Ralph (Danny de Vito), shows up. He's fresh out of gaol and looking for pay-back.
   Jack's boat blows up and a guy who tried to kill Omar says Omar had the bomb planted on the boat. This guy wants Jack to help him find The Jewel of the Nile. Joan learns that Omar isn't as popular as he makes out and ends up a prisoner. Jack & Ralph end up stuck in the desert with a bunch of Arabs with a disco complex. Joan learns that Omar is planning a war and he has hired a special effects guy to create some miracles for him so he can convince his people he's a spiritual leader.
   The Jewel turns out to be a bloke in a cell at Omar's palace! Omar tells Joan that Jack is dead and she had to write what he tells her. Joan and the Jewel escape; and run into Jack & Co. They go for a drive into the desert in Omar's jet fighter, they evade the pursuit and end up in the hands of an African tribe. Jack has to fight their champion for Joan.
   Meanwhile, Ralph has to do some fire-walking. Jack learns that the Jewel is a holy man not an actual jewel. Jack & Co. have fun with Omar's men on the train to Kadir but end up prisoners. Omar puts on his show for the people as Jack & Joan face a plunge into his pit. Ralph rescues them by accident, and they mess up Omar's show and get married.

Johnny English (2003) features Rowan Atkinson taking the piss out of the Bond films. At first, he is just a desk jockey, who prepares mission documents for Agent One, who is killed in the first 5 minutes. Along with all the other Agents when English is put in charge of security at the funeral. He has to take over One's mission, which he does with al the style and grace of Mr. Bean.
   The newly restored Crown Jewels disappear under English's nose and he bogs up a shoot-out with the thieves. They escape in a hearse and the Aston Martin ends up on a towaway truck, which English and Bought, his assistant, commandeer. Cue a wacky chase, English using a missile to take out a speed camera, and English tracking down the wrong hearse and making a fool of himself at a funeral.
   M. Sauvage, the French restorer, has the Crown Jewels. He reckons he should be King of England and he plans to get a copy of the Archbishop of Canterbury to crown him. English is told not to investigate Sauvage but takes no notice. He keeps running into Miss Campbell, who is a young Mrs. Peel clone. English starts a raid on Sauvage's HQ by parachuting onto the wrong tower block and ends up in disgrace and on 3 months' leave.
   The Queen is forced to abdicate. Miss Campbell takes over from English but recruits him. He enters Sauvage's chateau via the sewage system and sees Sauvage's plan on DVD – to put a fence around Britain when he's king and turn it into the world's biggest prison.
   English's attempts to disrupt the coronation flop but he ends up crowned by accident. So he has Sauvage arrested, reinstates the Queen and cops for a knighthood.

Jurassic Park (1993) A bloke is eaten while the park is being stocked with animals! So an insurance company guy turns up to harass the park operators in the swamp where the amber comes from. Meanwhile, Dr. Grant (Sam Neill) and Dr. Saddler are using seismology in Montana to locate dinosaur remains. Dr. Hammond, the creator of Jurassic Park, lands his helicopter practially on top of their dig and whisks them to his island off Chile.
   The computer guy at the park is involved in industrial espionage. The dead dino experts get to see some live ones! Then they get a cartoon presentation on DNA extraction and splicing using frog DNA. Everyone tells Dr. Hammond it's a bad idea because no one knows how dinosaurs will behave 65 million years out of their proper environment. The experts and Dr. Hammond's grandkids get a tour and get out of the unlocked automatic cars to go walkabout.
   The park's systems were done on the cheap and the computer system is full of bugs. There's also a storm heading for the island. The spy screws up the computer system, stranding the tourists in the park, while he steals some dino embryos. The T. Rex eats the accountant and another dino eats the spy. Dr. Grant is burdened with the horrible kids. Lots of dino peril & pursuit, and Dr. Grant spots the flaw in the whole system.
   The computer control system has to be switched off so that it can be rebooted. The horrible kid doesn't get fried on the electric fence. Booo! All the dinos get loose and cause havoc. More of the staff are eaten but not the horrible kids. And a handful of survivors escapes from the island in a helicopter.

Jurassic Park III (2001) begins with Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) saying raptors are smarter than primates, he's a 'dig 'em up in Montana' sort of dinosaur hunter, and there's no way he's going back to the island of frogspawn on steroids. So that's just where he ends up, bamboozled by Mr. Kirby, whose punk kid son is stuck on Isla Sorna, and who isn't as rich as he makes out.
   The plane crashes almost right away and Kirby's staff are eaten one by one. The gang find some raptor eggs and Billy, Dr. Grant's assistant, helps himself to a couple of them. They find an abandoned lab with vending machines, then a raptor starts chasing them and calls up its mates.
   Dr. Grant is surrounded by raptors but someone starts tossing gas bombs around; Eric, the missing kid. He has a bunker and supplies from the lab. There's a big reunion and everyone is chased by a chomposaurus. On the way to a boat, a pterodactyl tried to feed Eric to its brood and Billy is chomped while saving him.
   The survivors recover a satellite phone from a heap of chomposaurus dung, and it attacks as Dr. Grant is phoning a friend. A flare gun and some fuel see it off. The raptors show up again; but only for the eggs. The marines steam in to the rescue, and they have Billy. At the end, the pterodactyls fly away from the island, having been released from their aviary.