xXx: Return Of Xander Cage (2017)

Taking a leaf from the later instalments of the Fast & Furious franchise, this third film in the xXx series gives the lead role back to Vin Diesel, as you may have guessed from the title, and surrounds him with a bit of an all-star cast of people who bring various specialist skills to the table.

Xander Cage (Diesel) is asked to help once again when the world is endangered, this time by a group of people who have stolen a device that can control weather satellites. The danger of the situation is made apparent when one such satellite is sent on a crash course to Earth. Reluctant to help "the man", represented this time by Jane Marke (Toni Collette), Cage eventually agrees to do what he does best, on one condition; he gets to pick his team. It's not long until they're facing off against a group of equally talented fighters, but who are the real villains at work?

Directed by D. J. Caruso, xXx: Return Of Xander Cage has three major elements working in its favour. First of all, Caruso himself does well at the helm, working from a fun script by F. Scott Frazier that perfectly blends laughs and enjoyable action set-pieces. I've liked pretty much everything I have seen directed by Caruso, and this keeps his track record consistent for me.

Second, the tone of this is just perfect. The first two xXx movies tried to show that they were working with tongue in cheek, yet it never quite worked, and I think that's because at the heart of each storyline was a hero who wasn't ever really seen to be in on the joke. Diesel, in this instance, has more fun as he gets to play up the legend of his character while bantering with others who share his sense of recklessness, and that works really well.

Third, the cast. Diesel may not be the best thespian around but he knows how to strut around onscreen like someone with such a big ego, even when he's interacting with martial arts stars like Donnie Yen and Tony Jaa (who both get some decent onscreen moments, and I was impressed by how much screentime Yen actually got). Collette is fine as the suit in charge, Nina Dobrev is a lot of fun as the tech support worker who gets flustered around our hero, and Deepika Padukone, Ruby Rose, Kris Wu, and Rory McCann are all good additions to the series, either individually or thanks to how they are teamed up with others.

It may have been a high benchmark to exceed, but it's still surprising just how much more entertaining this film is compared to the two that preceded it. It is, in a way, exactly how this series should have been working from the very beginning. If you disliked the other films then still give this one a try. If you enjoyed the other films, albeit to varying degrees, then definitely check this one out. By the time you get past the main opening sequences (one involving Neymar, one involving a daring raid, and one involving Diesel jumping and skating around at breakneck speeds) then you will know what you have let yourself in for, and you will probably already be grinning.

7/10.

The Bluray is available here.
Americans can buy it here.

xXx: State Of The Union (2005)

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.

xXx (2002)

Do you ever think you're cool? Have you ever played skateboard or snowboard games on a console and imagined living that lifestyle? Ever had daydreams that have you helping to save the world while also sticking it to the man?

Well just stop. You're not cool. Even if you're sometimes a little bit cool, by accident or design, then you need to remember that you'll never be as cool as Xander Cage, the cooler-than-cool main character in xXx.

Cage (Vin Diesel) is a man who spends his time performing EXTREME stunts that make him quite the rock star to his many fans. But it also gets him noticed by Agent Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson), a man trying to convince his colleagues at the NSA that they need to start using a new type of secret agent for new types of criminals. And that's how Cage ends up dropped into another country and directed to get information on a major villain named Yorgi (Marton Csokas), which may give him an excuse to drive fast cars, pose in mid-air during jumps on a motorbike, skate down rails on a silver tray as he avoids sniper bullets, paraglide around, and cause an avalanche to give him an upper hand while he snowboards towards a big group of henchmen.

All of the above happens in xXx and I don't think listing them here would count as anything spoilery. This is a film made up of scenes built around moments they sold in the trailer. Well, those scenes and Vin Diesel's gravelly voice and attitude.

Writer Rich Wilkes seems to throw in everything that might work for the cool kids in the 21st century, and it works better than it should because of the way in which it's the whole lifestyle of the main character.

Director Rob Cohen handles the material competently enough. The most fun is to be had in the first third - a "training exercise" before the main mission - but the 2-hour runtime never drags, thanks to the spacing of the set-pieces and the mounting ridiculousness as everyone involved wants to prove how much they can deliver the goods while being a deliberate anti-Bond. If something can explode then it can explode BIG, if the soundtrack can fit a bit of nu-metal into a scene then it will (not enough to be grating, but it keeps popping up), and everything revolves around the fact that Vin Diesel is the smartest, strongest man for the job.

Diesel does well enough in his role, with a lot of thanks due to the stunt team here too (sadly, one of the main stunt players, Harry O'Connor, died - a sobering reminder of the efforts made by the people we so often don't see acknowledged enough), Csokas is enjoyable enough as the generic baddie with an accent, Jackson does his thing, and Asia Argento catches Diesel's eye and gets to act tough before the script lets her down by making her little more than a wide-eyed female onlooker during the main stunts that occur during the grand finale.

It's not a film that transforms the action genre but it's one that tries hard throughout most of the main sequences to entertain and provide something not already seen a hundred times before. While not entirely successful, and some of the moments clang like a dropped anvil, it's a fun slice of dumb.

6/10.

Get yourself a double-bill here.
Americans can get a nice disc here.