BY LARRY CARROLL | Jackie Chan ups the ante with some of his best chop-socky moves, but there's little else to get excited about in Shanghai Knights, a colorless sequel to a film that was mostly unexceptional itself. Chan (The Tuxedo) and costar Owen Wilson (I Spy) are both amicable personalities who are pleasant to watch, but the by-the-numbers Shanghai series gives you the feeling that it would be more entertaining to just skip the plot and turn the cameras on the actors behind the scenes, a theory that is lent credence by the amusing "gag reel" at the end of Knights.

This film opens with Chon Wang (Chan) as the Sheriff of a small Western town, successfully cleaning things up as only he could. When a Chinese rebel murders Wang's father (Kim S. Chan, Lethal Weapon 4) and escapes to London, Chon is contacted by his sister Lin (Fann Wong, in her American film debut) and told to meet up with her in Victorian Britain. Chon, needing backup as well as access to the funds that he procured in Shanghai Noon, tracks down his ol' buddy Roy O'Bannon (Wilson). Roy has lost all their money, much to Chon's dismay, but redeems himself by coming along to London to help catch the baddy.

Said villain is a maniacal Brit named Lord Rathbone (Aidan Gillen, TV's "Queer as Folk") who, in an overly contrived scheme, has teamed up with Wu Yip (Donnie Yen, Blade II) to take control of their respective countries. Chon Wang and his sister have stumbled upon the plot because their family is the appointed guardians of the "imperial seal" that was stolen by the men who killed the patriarch.

Moving the action to 1880s London gives the film a uniqueness that puts it above the standard Western flavor of the original, and also gives Wilson a plethora of opportunities to make fun of the Brits. Continuing to further his claim as one of the best comic sidekicks in the business, Wilson's comments never fail to bring a smile to your face. His romance with the sister of Chon (whose own love from the first movie, played by Lucy Liu, is only briefly alluded to) is mined for some good material, and redefines the relationship between the two leads as Chon finds himself becoming a chaperone to the two.

He might not be able to come up with enough moves to block Cupid's arrows, but Jackie Chan is certainly not at a loss when it comes to stopping every other adversary. For the first time in an American film, Chan seems to have been liberated enough to get as silly as he wants with his routines, and the results are dynamic. My personal favorite is a tribute to Mack Sennett's Keystone Kops that finds Jackie being chased by some officers in the familiar uniforms and Bobby hats. When you see the outfits, and the revolving hotel door between the Kops and Jackie Chan, you know that you're in for a treat. Chan pulls off the routine with great flair, punishing each Kop as he comes around again, deftly maneuvering between the doors while the less agile get squeezed.

There's also a tribute to Singing in the Rain that is a joy to watch; when Chan comes upon a table selling umbrellas in a crowded marketplace, he uses his surroundings to their full effect, and even does a little bit of dancing while the old familiar song plays. Similarly creative bits involve a canvas roof that bounces out one chase participant whenever another one jumps on, a scene where he dodges machine gun bullets that will make you think he'd be the only member of The Wild Bunch who could've lived, and a battle involving antique items that's almost as priceless as the vases that are being carefully thrown around. This kind of material, which made Chan the international star that he is, has often been watered-down in his American films, perhaps out of a fear that U.S. audiences wouldn't want their kung-fu quite so goofy. But Chan is the rare performer that can make you laugh and still keep the proceedings appropriately menacing. If there is one reason to see Shanghai Knights, it is to see Jackie Chan working this magic.

The unfortunate thing about the film is that creativity is a quality which seems to be appreciated only by Chan. Director David Dobkin (Clay Pigeons) and writers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (returning from the original) rely far too heavily on tired plot devices, and even more so on condescending "historical cameos". A little kid that is amazed by Jackie Chan's footwork turns out to be - wow!- Charlie Chaplin! A bumbling detective with a knack for inferring people's identities through tiny clues turns out to be - surprise, surprise! - Arthur Conan Doyle. Jack the Ripper also gets turned into a punchline, but it doesn't end there - the boys hang from Big Ben, drive one of the world's first automobiles into Stonehenge, and coin the names "Benny Hana" and "Sherlock Holmes". It gets to the point where a scene could appear with them helping Twain publish "Huckleberry Finn" and founding AT&T before breakfast, then dedicating the Washington Monument and assembling the Statue of Liberty in the afternoon before heading off to the premiere of the "Mikado" at night, and it would fit right in with everything else.

A little bit of this might be cute - like the fact that Jackie Chan's character name provoked Owen Wilson to say, "John Wayne? That's a terrible cowboy name!" in the original. But in this film it comes across as patronizing, particularly when they reach the inevitable point where the full name of our buddy "Artie" is revealed long after any reasonably intelligent person would get the gag. There's also a startling amount of disregard towards any historical accuracy whatsoever, with characters telling each other to "be cool" and referring to "Hollywood" as a movie mecca some twenty years before the first film company arrived there.

The supporting actors are effective without making too much of an impression. Particularly generic is Gillen as the evildoer, who seems to be channeling Gary Oldman, Alec Baldwin and Johnny Rotten all at once. Wong is cute and credible as a martial artist, but doesn't have much of a chance to be more than a prop. Aaron Johnson (Tom & Thomas), as the young Chaplin, can be a bit cloying at times with his Tiny Tim orphan schtick, but is cute enough to be forgiven. The best of the bunch is Tom Fisher (The Mummy Returns) as Doyle, a joke that could have been much worse if the actor hadn't made him so endearing.

Shanghai Knights isn't a bad movie, it's just one that really has no reason to exist. The first film was a decent trifle that helped pass the time, but it's hard to imagine the masses clamoring for any sort of sequel. Unless the script was leaps and bounds ahead of the first movie, and it's not, there's no reason to tell this additional story. Everyone involved in the film seems to sense this, but they also seem to genuinely enjoy each other's presence, which makes it a hard movie to hate. But it's much harder to justify spending ten dollars to see the thing.

GRADE: C+