Jackie Chan, approximately a month before trying on his Pat Morita role of Mr. Miyagi, busts onto the small screen with The Spy Next Door. Starring as Bob Ho, Chan plays a spy hiding out in suburbia who falls for a single soccer mom and must try to win over her three toughened-by-life children. And, of course, he's forced to stop the worldwide annihilation of oil by evil Russian goons. [Fade the Dr. Evil laugh...]

Chan does for this spy flick what Ice Cube did in revamping his image in Are We There Yet? and Eddie Murphy did in Dr. Dolittle and Daddy Day Care. It's actually a lot like The Pacifier only Vin Diesel is more brute force and Chan is crazy, bounce off the wall and land on the rough kind of stuff. Chan doesn't exactly look smooth in the translation to more dialogue, but when he's doing the physical stuff, he's darn near untoppable. He understands physical humor and he's outrageously good at pulling off these stunts, even if some of them are more "artificially" created than they were in his youth.

What can you make of the new Chan? He's personable, athletic, and witty, and not as much like the guy who could completely disarm a room full of men in his own frenetic style. But here, he makes nice to the kitten and the kids, and he romances a woman who looks a bit out of his league in the looks department. He's certainly more believable than Billy Ray Cyrus (is that his real hair?) and George Lopez sort of fills in a spot as Ho's boss while he's on loan to the CIA.

The villains are funny, the kids are pretty cute, and the action is entertaining, but the main point here is that Chan's story turns into a movie that's all about family. Chan even imparts the words to the teenage daughter, the one most opposed to Ho, that are something along the lines of "you can't control who you're related to by blood, but family is about who you love and who loves you back." That's pretty straightforward stuff, but it's worth considering in this day and age; it's not just about being yourself and being strong, but here, community rises above it all.

Chan's latest "strike" hits the mark, entertaining and proving wholesome, and the potential is there for a new era in his career, following the Asian career, then the U.S. career, and now the post-martial-arts career. Now, we'll just have to wait and see what he can do with The Karate Kid.