*Just to let you guys know I’m using the spelling xXx as opposed to XXX because that’s how IMDB has it.
In the movies themselves the titles are animated giving little
indication how it should really go. I
mean two of the x’s on the sides do seem to be smaller than the larger middle
one. Ah who gives a shit.
And you know what, I don’t mind the guy. He’s not the most charismatic individual but
at the same time he does have a bit of a presence, he gets the job done and some
of those Fast and Furious’ are pretty
damn entertaining (Five is my fav). It’s too bad that xXx is total schlock.
By all accounts this is a dumb fuckin’ picture. Maybe the acting isn’t the worst I’ve ever
seen and it’s shot, eh, ok I guess, but the script is atrocious. None of the ideas work very well. The Columbian raid scene, the avalanche
scene, the poison gas water rocket scene are all ham handed and feel more like
pieces that screenwriter Rich Wilkes (The
Jerky Boys, Airheads) came up with first and then later had to write the
rest of the screenplay around. He didn’t
even try with the dialogue so don’t expect anything remotely interesting
there. The characters are very simple
too. The villain wants to destroy the
world, the love interest is an undercover agent and the gadget guru is some
nerdy guy.
Our hero, Xander Cage (Diesel), isn’t any more complex. He’s an extreme sports fanatic and uses those
skills (motorcyclin’, car drivin’, snowboardin’, rock climbin’, skate boardin’,
parasailin’, etc.) to take down the bad guys.
The filmmakers try to make you think that there’s more to him with an
inner struggle angle. Xander’s supposed
to act like he doesn’t give a shit on the outside but deep down he really cares
about the world. The thing is he always
ends up doing the right thing. He never
acts selfishly or in a manner that would suggest that he truly doesn’t care.
The general idea here seems to be an updated version of
James Bond. Instead of a suave and
smooth spy we get an unsophisticated and brash one. There’s even a line where Xander says “dude
you gotta stop thinking Prague Police and start thinking Playstation, blow shit
up!” So just charge forward. It’ll all work out (and of course everything
does). However, I would say that this
isn’t different enough from your usual Bond picture. Aside from Bond and Xander being kinda
different the rest of the film isn’t. I
could totally see Bond outrunning an avalanche on a snowboard or parasailing
his way onto a water rocket. It’s really
your standard 007 flick with a slightly different lead.
And what the fuck is up with the title? The main character’s name is Xander
Cage. That’s only one X if I counted
right. Where the hell do the other two
come from? The spy program isn’t called
xXx, Xander’s code name doesn’t become xXx, he doesn’t prefer to be called xXx
as a nickname and his series of sports videos aren’t called xXx (it’s the Xander Zone). The only xXx that appears in this movie (expect
in the title) is in the form of a tattoo on the back on Xaner’s neck but no one
ever says one goddamn word about it. It’s
just there minding its own business waiting for someone to comment and no one
does. Obviously they went with xXx because it sounds risqué but it’s
just another layer of stupid that this film piles on.
This thing did well though and so a sequel was made. Diesel opted for The Pacifier instead attempting to broaden his appeal and his
image. I don’t think it worked considering
three out his next five movies were Fast
and Furious’. And even then, out of
the other two remaining only one was a totally different role for him with the
lighthearted courtroom drama (at least that’s how the trailer makes it look) Find Me Guilty.
Anyway, moving on to xXx:
State of the Union. This time a new
guy needs to stop the secretary of defense from taking out the president and
starting World War…IV? Hold on, when the
hell did we fight and wrap up World War III?
I’m pretty sure I would’ve remembered that. Not only does the movie make no mention of
World War III but this is supposed to take place in modern day and not the
future where you could pass off a comment like that. I swear they mention this World War IV thing
more than once too making an actual part of the plot and not just some weird
line that Ice Cube improv’d during shooting.
Samuel L. Jackson is back in his role as mentor and it was
nice that they gave him more to do this time.
He actually becomes an important plot point and gets to do some ass
kicking himself.
The strangest casting decision, however, goes to Willem Defoe
who doesn’t do a particularly interesting job either. What the fuck is he doing in this thing? By this time he had already been in huge
movies leading up to this one like Spider-Man,
American Psycho and Finding Nemo. I guess I never realized that he has Lance
Henriksen (Aliens, Stone Cold)
syndrome where even though he’s a legit star and a well-known actor that’s been
in big name films, for some reason the man feels the need to say yes to every
piece of shit that comes across his path.
Defoe has done at least two movies a year since the mid 90’s. In 2005 alone he was in four pictures
including this xXx sequel. He’s a workaholic.
The action is ok at best.
It’s not as bad as most others were at the time but there are still
problems with it. Like the use of the stunt
double is too obvious during the hand to hand fight scenes. It just doesn’t look right the way they
edited it together. Inserting a close up
of Cube’s face every so often doesn’t make it look like he’s actually fighting
the bad guy. I think they probably shot
these scenes fine but totally fucked it up during editing.
There’s a lot of bad green screening and CGI too. The bullet train sequence at the end looks
especially terrible.
And this time they explicitly tell us that a xXx is what the
NSA calls their secret division of spies. For example Darius Stone is a xXx and so is Xander
Cage (sorry, was a xXx). At least we got that cleared up.
| This is a real image from an actual scene that takes place in State of the Union |
Lee Tamahori (Along
Came a Spider, Next, Die Another Day) directs and I’ve seen most of his
pictures accidentally. He’s not a very
good director. One thing I noticed is
that he likes to put a bunch of CGI in his movies but the thing is he seems to
have one of the worst feels for CGI out there.
He also doesn’t know how to make a story flow. Most of the scenes in this start and end
abruptly without transition. I wanna say
that Tamahori is the perfect candidate for a job like this because who fuckin’
cares about the xXx films? But you never know what could be done with a
series in the right hands. Those Fast & Furious’ just got better and
better (until Furious 6 which was extremely
disappointing and (I hate to say this) kinda bad).
And I don’t know if there were scenes that were cut out or
just never written but I have to admit that the whole thing flew by
quickly. I was never very engrossed in
what was happening or on any part of the production but for some reason before
I knew it the film was over (running time is 100 mins). It felt proper though. I didn’t wish that there was more.
So if you compare this to its predecessor State of the Union is probably equal
with it. Neither one is very good. The first feels more like a big budget
picture and you could tell they were going for something (James Bond
update). The sequel has a lower budget
feel but it also doesn’t come off quite as dumb as the original.
State of the Union
was totally a different script that was adapted into a xXx movie and maybe that’s why I might like that one only slightly
better. There isn’t any of the
snowboardin’, motorcyclin’, etc. that was established in the first one and was
very obviously intended to be a trademark of the series. State
of the Union is a bit more of a straight up action piece with several
battles involving tanks, hand to hand fights and shoot outs.
| Oh yea, Xzibit's in this too |
xXx is more of a
spy movie though. There’s the globetrotting,
the gadgets, the undercover work, a villain that wants to take over the world,
etc. State
of the Union only takes place on the eastern seaboard, Stone doesn’t really
go undercover (dressing up as a waiter for a minute so you can eavesdrop
doesn’t count) and the villain wants to be president (ok and maybe start a
world war). There’re gadgets too but there
were more in the first one.
There’s also one more important difference between the
films. Xander Cage was a civilian that
was recruited to be a spy but Darius Stone is already a spy (or Navy Seal at
least). I thought the idea of xXx was to take non-military delinquents,
adrenaline junkies and felons who could think outside the box, who were
expendable and turn them into secret agents.
State of the Union goes
against that by taking a well trained, already established perfect killing
machine and turning him loose. Just like
the absence of the extreme sports stuff, this isn’t in the spirit of what the
series was supposed to be.
Whatever, I wouldn’t recommend either one.
Side note: apparently another xXx movie is in the works (fuck, I’m gonna have to see that one too
now).
No comments:
Post a Comment