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XXX
Director: Rob Cohen Cast: Vin Diesel, Asia Argento, Marton Csokes, Samuel L. Jackson MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:51 Release Date: 8/9/02 |
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Review by Mark Dujsik Apparently the James Bond series is getting too boring. Why doesn’t anyone ever fill me in on these things? To correct the faults of the seeming lag in the spy genre, director Rob Cohen gives us XXX (read "triple X") and falls into the same trap that plagued his The Fast and the Furious. Both classify as and promise mindless, summer entertainment, but neither fulfills the promise. The Fast and the Furious offered a couple of car races in the beginning and one big chase at the finale and filled the rest with a brainless plot with no action in sight. XXX admittedly works better; it has superior special effects, better action sequences, more stunts, and puts Vin Diesel in the spotlight. Perhaps that’s all a spy movie needs, and I would be happy to enjoy such a visceral experience. Once again, though, the middle act is bogged down in plot—this time clichéd instead of brainless. So goes the story: The NSA is having some trouble in Prague. One of their agents is killed during an attempt to steal a microchip from some very bad men (the intelligence agent who thought a tuxedo was the appropriate attire to blend into a Czechoslovakian heavy metal club should at least get a pay cut). The giveaway, scarred agent Augustine Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) says, is that the villains could "smell their training." Gibbons doesn’t just have a weird name, he has a crazy idea: recruit some criminals into the agency. Enter Xander Cage (Diesel), the mastermind behind an "underground Internet site" (is it even possible to have such a thing?) featuring extreme stunts like stealing a state Senator’s Corvette, driving it off a bridge, and parachuting to safety. His qualifications: he’s a criminal-at-large, a daredevil, and a poster boy for attitude. After a couple of tests (one that shows off his keen perception and the other his prowess on a motorcycle), he’s sent to infiltrate Anarchy ’99, an anarchist group (self-explanatory from their name) with a lot to hide. The story is the stuff of all spy thrillers, and in trying to update the genre for a younger, hipper sensibility, screenwriter Rich Wilkes has gone for the basics. The villain, played by Marton Csokes, is foreign, trying to take over or destroy the world, and when about to finish off the hero, always talks long enough for some deus ex machina element to save the day. The group’s strategy is reminiscent of the villains in The Sum of All Fears, except that you suspect that even anarchists would note the irrationality of the resulting political and environmental climate if their plan succeeds and try to have more than about twenty people on the staff before taking on such a project. His henchmen have little quirks, like smoking, and having funny accents, and liking Xander. All right, they aren’t really quirks, but you get the idea. Xander has to become a part of the militia in order to see how they work, an angle taken directly out of The Fast and the Furious but of course done countless time before. And there’s a girl, played here by Asia Argento. Her character is kept a mystery, ready to play both sides as needed by the screenplay. Let’s face it, the only reason for this plot is to provide some action, and on this level, the movie delivers—occasionally. The opening bridge stunt sets the tone—a stunt, done by real stuntmen, surrounded by explosions, captured from multiple camera angles, and edited in slow motion. There’s an elaborate test concocted by the NSA which places Xander in Colombia to unknowingly become the part of a firefight between the national army and guerrillas. Again, there are lots of explosions, and Xander jumps over a few buildings on a motorcycle. After this sequence, insert the plot. A while later, we get back to basics with the movie’s most effective action sequence. In it, Xander decides that the best way to destroy a mountainside communications tower is to bury it in an avalanche, and of course, he has to manually set the explosives to initiate the avalanche and escape it on snowboard. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be any fun, right? And it’s a little more plausible than outrunning a fireball. XXX is mostly notable for announcing the arrival of an action star. Vin Diesel has the kind of affably rebellious charisma perfect for Xander or X or XXX or whatever this guy wants to call himself. He has a strong presence and holds the movie together as much as he can when the plot kicks in. Did you expect any less from a guy whose name is Vin Diesel? Copyright © 2002 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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