"THE PROTECTOR" — ** — Tony Jaa, Petchtai Wongkamlao; dubbed and with English subtitles (Asian dialects); rated R (violence, profanity, gore, vulgarity, brief nudity, brief sex, brief drugs, racial epithets).

The elephants featured in "The Protector" have more personality than the star, which is a real problem.

This martial-arts/revenge thriller is supposed to be a star-making vehicle for Tony Jaa, an athletic Muay-Thai combatant who is being positioned as the next Jackie Chan. (Chan even does a cameo here, as a way of "passing the torch" to Jaa.)

But while Jaa has plenty of astonishing fighting moves, he lacks Chan's screen presence, dramatic or comic. As for the film, "The Protector" is certainly not unwatchable but it's a far cry from Chan's better pictures.

Jaa (who previously starred in "Ong-bak: The Thai Warrior") plays Cam, a Thai man whose job is protecting royal elephants, but gangsters kidnap Cam's animal charges, and in the process they also kill his father (Sotorn Rungruaeng).

Understandably, Cam is not in a forgiving mood. In fact, when he tracks the bad guys to Australia, he immediately starts cracking heads.

Obviously, no one goes to these kinds of movies for the story, and the plotting here is so ridiculous that it's a bit of a hindrance.

Perhaps that explains why this domestic release was heavily edited by its U.S. distributor, The Weinstein Co., which trimmed approximately 15 minutes, leaving several transition scenes on the cutting-room floor. And perhaps the film's comedy scenes, as well (Thai comedian Petchtai Wongkamlao co-stars as an Australian cop who aids Cam).

Still, there is plenty of action. Fans will appreciate a brutal, lengthy sequence in which Jaa's character breaks several arms, wrists, fingers, shoulders, legs, ankles, spines and necks — complete with exaggerated sound effects.

"The Protector" is rated R for strong scenes of martial-arts/action violence (combat, beatings, shootings, stabbings, vehicular violence and explosive mayhem), scattered strong profanity and crude slang terms, some gore, brief female nudity and artwork, brief sexual contact, brief drug content (references), and use of racial epithets. Running time: 92 minutes.

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