If you ever struggle with your place in the world, stressing out as you consider the fact that your IQ may be working against you, because ignorance is bliss, then you should immediately get your hands on xXx: State Of The Union. It WILL help lower that IQ. It's that dumb.
Lee Tamahori, a man who should stop giving us poor action movies and return to making films like the most excellent Once Were Warriors, is the director, working from a script by Simon Kinberg (who has a slightly better track record, but also gave us Fantastic Four), and it quickly becomes clear that it's a hodge podge of ridiculous action and bad decisions, accompanied by a number of obvious soundtrack choices.
Ice Cube
is the new xXx, an ex-military rough guy who gets broken out from jail
by Samuel L. Jackson (reprising his role of Agent Augustus Eugene
Gibbons) and Michael Roof (reprising the much lesser role of Agent Toby
Lee Shavers). This all happens because the xXx facility has been raided,
people have been killed, and there's suspicion of a conspiracy that may
reach as high as the Secretary Of Defence (Willem Dafoe) and the
President Of The United States (Peter Strauss). Can Ice Cube snarl and
punch-kick-throw enough people out of the way to complete his new
mission?
Let
me clarify something before we move forward, I can absolutely switch my
brain off to enjoy a movie. Anyone who has met me for more than five
minutes already knows that it takes me more effort to sometimes switch
my brain ON. But the film still has to meet me halfway. This does not do
that. It's even more ridiculous than the first film, which would be
okay if a) they nailed the tone and b) could make the most of their
budget. They manage neither.
Cube
can do tough and mean, but he doesn't ever feel convincing in the full
action hero role. Sorry, he just doesn't work here for me. Jackson can
do his thing in his sleep, and he's okay, and Roof clearly couldn't
believe his luck when he found that his minor tech guy role from the
first movie had been beefed up for this instalment. Dafoe is fun,
Strauss is bland, Scott Speedman is an agent who may end up helping or
hindering Cube, and Xzibit pops up long enough to join in with some
vehicular carnage. The main female characters are played by Nona Gaye
and Sunny Mabrey, with the latter given a bit more to do than the
former.
There
are so many moments here to either relish or roll your eyes at,
depending on your mood. The jailbreak sequence, for starters, features
one of my pet peeves - a vehicle that makes no sound at all until it
appears in frame. There are some nice cars on display, lots of stuntmen
fall down to make Ice Cube look good, a tank on tank battle quickly
becomes far too ridiculous, but ends well, and the finale features a car
jumping on to some train tracks, shredding the rubber from the tyres,
and still catching up to a . . . bullet train. Admittedly, I was
laughing out loud at that point. It was a big mess, but I had already
gone along with it all and I knew the end must be near.
Despite
the twists and turns that the script takes, the biggest thing working
against this movie is that it doesn't have the identity of the first
film. As dumb as xXx
was, it had the central gimmick (extreme sports legend sent in as a
secret agent). This film is just an action movie that seems determined
to be the dumbest film of 2005. Tamahori and Kinberg can do much better,
as can most of the cast members. I suspect even Roof can do better. And
I know that viewers can.
3/10.
Buy two movies here.
Or Americans can get just the sequel here.
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