Okay, here's the deal. There are things in this world that I never thought I'd say to another human bean. It just went for granted that the words would never spill from my cakehole. I once had to tell a patient that Preparation H was not to be taken orally.

I never thought I'd say, "Turn that music down, I can't hear myself think." My daddy used to say that when I'd have my KISS albums cranked to shatter-plaster setting. Then, the other day, I told Jaynell, our young nurse, the same thing when she spun the dial up on a Spice Girls song. In that special moment, I suddenly felt like Buddy Epsen at the Gap, and felt myself craving a can of Ensure and a linament rubdown. Yipe.

I never thought I'd tell another soul that they needed a haircut. I never thought I'd offer any opinion on a political view, until the NEA funding thing ticked me off. I never thought I'd walk into a shoe store and ask for "something comfortable for standing." I never thought I'd ask a waiter, "Just how spicy is the chili?" I never dreamed I'd be saying, "Disco music wasn't all that bad," but, after hearing the drek posing as popular music today, well, color me Manero.

And, I really never contemplated ever uttering the words I'm about to share. The new Jackie Chan movie, Operation Condor, is a ho-hum affair.

Especially for a Jackie Chan movie. I mean, folks, this is the guy that can fight off a gang of meanies with a shopping cart and a soup ladel. He does his own stunts -- stunts that would scare the tighty whities off a professional daredevil. His hands and feet move faster than Beep Beep the Road Runner on Looney Toon Prom Night. How could anything with this much promise be such a spittin' yawner?

Maybe the secret lies in the fact that this isn't a new flick at all. It's a '97 release of a 1990 movie called Feiying Gaiwak a.k.a. Armour of God II. Those of us that knew Jackie before he became a Mountain Dew spokesmodel knew that he made some dynamite movies and some duds. Dang, if you were making four movies a year for the past twenty-odd years, you'd miss the canoe every now and then, too. (Hey, Chevy Chase, what's your excuse?)

This one has ChanMan playing some sort of secret agent/Indy Jones guy, tracking a cache of stolen gold that got itself buried in Africa by the Nazis before they lost the war. Condor (the secret agent's name that everybody seems to know) hooks up with these two bimbos and off they go. And, before you say it, allow me: who needs a plot in a Jackie Chan movie?

Ordinarily, I'd agree with you. If you go to a Chan-fest looking for a dialogue-driven script and fine cinematography, you need to have a couple of Excedrin Extras and lie down on the couch for a while, 'cause you're a borderline brainfart. You go see Jackie Chan to see what kind of action the man has thought up now. He's a genius at making the action sequence wilder, the fight scene faster and slicker, and that's all. You go to be amazed.

So, where's the action here? We get a double dozen different versions of Random Goon catching a Nike in the gut or a punch in the pieport. Lots of running and shooting (snore, zzzzzz, grunt...), and maybe two or three milliseconds of the Chan we look forward to. Sure, grabbing a gun with his feet while rolling over is cool, but it ain't gonna carry a 90-minute movie.

I guess we were all spoiled by the outrageously fantastic action sequence that ended Supercop, with the chopper, the motorcycle, and the train. Rent it if you didn't see it, and learn how it feels to hoist your jaw up off the linoleum. We were spoiled by the almost-Astaire-like beauty and grace, not to mention the dexterity and comic flair of the battle in First Strike when he uses a nine-foot aluminum ladder as a weapon and a shield. We were so built up by stuff like this, it becomes a major letdown when there's nothing to approach it in Condor.

Jackie directed himself in this one, so maybe he didn't know how to showcase himself as well as his usual director, Stanley Tong, has done so brilliantly in the past. And, without a Chan to lead them, everything and everybody else in Condor seems as aimless as a Star Wars Stormtrooper's shootin' iron. The characters are all stereotypical, women being blithering idiots who can't keep their towels up; the men are all about four brain cells shy of Shemp.

In short, don't waste your coinage on Operation Condor. It's a passable fare if your A.C. conks out in the summer heat, but, over all, hit a Blockbuster for the better Chan efforts. Try the Police Story trilogy -- First Strike, Supercop, or, my personal fave, The Big Brawl (the scene at the roller derby is a phenom - Jackie on skates!). Any of these will show you Jackie Chan at his best...and you won't have to say something like, "Who poured sour dung on my left eyeball?"