Ruddtrospective #20: Happy 53rd Birthday, Paul!!!

Full spoilers for Gen-Y Cops, which is one of the most unintentionally(I assume) hilarious movies that I’ve ever seen.

Gen-Y Cops(2000), also known as Gen-X Cops 2: Metal Mayhem, stars Edison Chen, Stephen Fung, Sam Lee, Richard Sun, Christy Chung, Maggie Q, Mark Hicks, and Paul Rudd. It was directed by Benny Chan, and written by Kiu-Ying Chan and Felix Chong. The English dialogue was written by Bey Logan.

Before I get into the review, I’ll just talk about the title of this post quick. Yes, this is the 20th Ruddtrospective. Yes, it’s his fifty-third birthday. No, he doesn’t look like a fifty-three year old. And no, I did not plan to do this on his birthday. It was unintentional. And yeah, it’s weird that he’s fifty-three. He can still easily pass as someone in their late thirties. I also know this is a really weird film for him to be in. From all the interviews I’ve listened to, he was very aware of that fact when he agreed to take this role.

The movie is about Alien(Sam Lee) and Match(Stephen Fung), two characters from the first movie, who have to team up with newcomer Edison(Edison Chen) and stop an evil hacker with a horrible haircut. The hacker, Kurt(Richard Sun), was part of the team working on the RS-1 robot. He was fired due to insubordination, and is now determined to take over the world with the use of his robot. The movie opens with the robot being demonstrated to three FBI agents: Ross Tucker(Mark Hicks), Ian Curtis(Paul Rudd), and Jane Quigley(Maggie Q). Kurt hacks into the robot during the demonstration and wrecks some shit up, but the FBI and the businessman who poured all his money into the making of the RS-1 are insistent on taking it to this big expo in Hong Kong. So Kurt and his FBI mole head to Hong Kong as well. It turns out that Edison and Kurt are old friends, and Kurt uses this to his advantage and frames Edison. From there, there’s lots of kung fu, multiple double-crosses, horrible jokes and effects, and a crap ton of really bad dubbing. I rewatched it for this and my thoughts are below.

• Oooh, a CGI opening credits sequence of what appears to be a bank vault. I didn’t know I was watching a Bryan Singer X-Men movie.
• OH MY GOD I FORGOT PAUL RUDD IS BLONDE IN THIS!!!

• The FBI is working on a robot that looks like a cross between a sentinel and a Transformer.
• The effects in this are just terrible. The robot shot a missile at a weapons system and it looked so fake. But the fire from the explosion hit the blast shield and Paul Rudd reacted to it like a minute after it hit. Almost like nothing was really there.
• The scientists demonstrating what the robot can do are such bad actors. Rather, the people who were hired to redo the lines that were seemingly already in English did a horrible job.
• And now everyone is clapping and congratulating each other because the robot demonstrated its excellent dexterity by picking up a piece of cake and holding it in the palm of its hand. This is ridiculous and I love it.
• Also everyone’s dialogue is dubbed over despite seemingly speaking English?
• Oh and the robot has been hacked into by a man with terrible hair because he was apparently fired for no reason.
• THE COMPUTERS HAVE A FLASHING WARNING THAT SAYS “BEING HACKING.” THIS IS THE BEST MOVIE.
• Everybody has just the worst hair. And they pick and choose who to dub over for some reason? Some people may be speaking different languages but other people are clearly saying the lines in English but have been replaced by somebody who clearly is not an actor. There’s a scene with a Jamaican man, and the dubbing makes it sound like they got a really white man to just redo his lines in the most offensive way possible.
• This movie was so clearly made in the 2000s and it isn’t even funny. I’m really happy I wasn’t alive when they made this.
• So Kurt drugs Edison and somehow the drug makes him react to Kurt’s control and hack the robot for him. So Kurt steals the robot with Edison’s help. It’s very easy to tell when the robot is actually there and when it’s CGI.
• Alien and Match are the most annoying and sexually aggressive characters that I’ve ever had the displeasure of watching.
• This is a very sweaty movie.
• Paul Rudd is very convincing as a douchey FBI agent that is disliked by literally every main character.
• This is actual dialogue from the film –
  ALIEN: “Yeah, you’re right. But I’ll never ever get used to the bars on the window.”
  MATCH: “It’s no problem. Just pretend you’re at a wildlife park.”
  ALIEN: “Hey, I really like monkeys, don’t you? The way they swing through the trees.”
• I feel like this movie would be better if I could find the original version where people actually speak Cantonese. The dubbing really ruins this whole thing. Before this movie I’d never seen people overact and underact at the same time. Whenever someone speaks English, their version of the lines makes it through. And whenever someone speaks a different language we hear a dubbed version.
• There’s some weird subplot about a man in a lobster costume being a part of the conspiracy with Kurt. It doesn’t make any sense and I don’t know why it’s in the movie.
• Alien and Match are in jail for exactly one day, but when they leave they have goatees.
• It’s almost beautiful how ridiculous this movie is. I’m so happy that it exists.
• Let’s talk about the commitment Paul Rudd put into this role. He spent months in Hong Kong filming this with a bunch of really bad actors who speak Cantonese and not English. They made him bleach his hair blonde. He didn’t need to do this movie at all. But he did and he doesn’t even half-ass it.
• He also changed one of his lines because he knew nobody making the movie would realize it was a joke. So at one point he says this with a straight face –
  IAN CURTIS: “Rosanne Barr Arnold would be President of the United States of America before you two punks see the light of day.”
• I love that he basically did all this because he thought it would be funny. Also Ian Curtis is also the name of the lead singer of Joy Division, which is funny. If you don’t feel like watching this movie, which you should, then you should just watch what Paul Rudd had to say about it on the Graham Norton Show, which pretty much tells you everything you need to know.
  Paul Rudd makes fun of Gen-Y Cops
• There’s a really gross subplot where this girl has a crush on Alien but he finds him repulsive for some weird reason. And then it’s revealed that he’s been chatting with her online for weeks and really enjoyed her company. But he finds her face so repulsive that he vomits. Such great characters, right?
• Another really weird Paul Rudd line –
  IAN CURTIS: “Keep flappin’, dickhead! You’re the one going to the bamboo Alcatraz!”
  I feel like that’s racist. Is it racist? I think it might be.
• On every poster I’ve seen for this movie, it says “Jacki Chan Presents”, but I haven’t found a single reference to Jackie Chan in the credits whatsoever. So at this point they’re just sullying the name of Jackie Chan to promote this stupid movie.
• Also you’d think if they were going to put his name on this they would put more effort into the action scenes. And they’re fine, for the most part. There are some good bits every once in a while. But it’s very inconsistent. Most of the fight scenes in this include shirtless sweaty dudes with frosted tips and sleeveless jackets doing flying kicks at each other.
• There’s a funny bit where Kurt drives a car through a bigger car and manages to not get scratched in any way. Because that’s how driving works, I guess?
• There’s another subplot about Match owning part of this really lucrative tech company, and him being under fire for not showing up to the meetings. But halfway through the movie he just decides that he no longer cares about this thing that makes him money. And it isn’t referenced again.
• Also there are some Chinese scientists that build their own robot, and despite it falling apart at the expo, the engineers insist that it will destroy the RS-1 with a single hit. And then they insist that it’s only for peace. I’m mentioning this because from memory the robot comes into play later.
• It also turns out that the buyers of the robot are a group of gentlemen in turbans that I think are supposed to be Middle Eastern from the way they’re presented. But some of, if not all of them, are white guys. So some more casual racism.
• Oh, and Ross Tucker, Rudd’s partner, is revealed to be a double agent halfway through the movie. But I’m pretty sure they only revealed there was a double agent a few minutes before that happens. So some great foreshadowing there.
• You can actually see Paul Rudd’s face for some of the fight scenes, so I have to assume he actually did some of the stunts and fighting techniques in this.
• I haven’t explicitly said it yet, and I feel it should. When I say that Kurt has horrible hair, I mean that he has black hair topped with spiky blonde tips and a stringy blonde rat tail. And I may not be correct, but I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t wear a shirt at any point during the movie. Just an ugly blue jacket and a silver chain with a big K pendant. You know. K for Kurt.
• Okay, so the Chinese robot has arrived, along with one of the police tech guys and his trash can-shaped robot that everyone spends the whole movie making fun of. But neither of these subplots need to be in this movie, because both robots blow up. I guess we can give the Chinese robot credit for self-destructing itself, but it barely does any damage to the RS-1.
• Kurt is the most annoying villain in film history. And he makes the mistake of saying “I’m invincible” right before getting gunned down by his robot for no reason at all. Actually, sorry. It got infected with a virus by the trash can robot, and it’s about to self-destruct. So maybe that subplot does need to be in this? But Match, Alien, and Edison, despite knowing that they only have sixty seconds to get rid of the robot, decide to do flying kicks at it. Oh, and RS-1 steps on Alien’s balls. So funny.
• So now Ian Curtis, who is now helping the Gen-Y Cops, is rescuing them by coming in with a brand new truck and a length of chain. And the plan is to get the robot to the water before it self-destructs. Even though it’s been maybe four minutes since the sixty second countdown began? Also that whole climactic battle started at a shipyard and then went to a mall.
• When the robot actually explodes, you get to see a giant wall of CGI water. It’s truly beautiful to see.
• And now Paul Rudd is speaking Cantonese, and I don’t get to hear his melodic voice anymore. Sad.
• The movie ends with the three guys and Maggie Q heading to a bar with Paul Rudd. How sweet.

I’m glad this movie exists. I know I hated on it, but it’s truly ridiculous and generic in a funny way, and I really enjoy watching it. I would recommend this to literally everyone.

Overall Rating: 8/10(It’s not even slightly a good movie. The plot is convoluted and full of unnecessary subplots. There are multiple problematic elements, and multiple terrible performances that make me cringe. But it’s so much fun to watch.)
Rudd Rating: 10/10(He knew this was a joke when he signed on, so he easily could have phoned in his performance. But he didn’t, and it’s really fun to watch him as a tight-ass FBI guy who only cares about finishing the job. Great job and Happy Birthday, Paul. May you outlive every one of us.)

I hope you enjoyed this, and I’d like to emphasize once more that you should watch this movie. There’s so many dumb things that happen that I didn’t mention. It’s on Prime Video if you decide to watch it. So this week I covered a little-known Paul Rudd movie with bad reviews that is bad. Next week I’ll be covering a little-known Paul Rudd movie with bad reviews that I think might actually be an unironically great movie. So stay tuned for that and have a great day!