xXx: Return of Xander Cage
Director - DJ Caruso
Writer - F Scott Frazier
Starring - Vin Diesel, Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone, Ruby Rose, Kris Wu, Toni Collette
Surely you remember that Vin Diesel returned to the xXx franchise back in January, right? Xtreme Mountain Dew James Bond. Wait, did you completely forget xXx was even a thing in the first place? I guess you can be forgiven considering it has been 15 years since the original and nobody cares about the Ice Cube starring sequel. Ice Cube's mother doesn't remember that being a thing. Well anyways, Vin Diesel returns as Xander Cage, aka the coolest motherfucker who's ever lived, to fight terrorists or evil governments or something and he's brought a cast of friends that a cynical person would say are only there to boost the international box office. Sure Donnie Yen broke out to Western audiences with Rogue One but I'm willing to be nobody in North America had ever heard of Deepika Padukone or Kris Wu. Vin Diesel wants that Asian market.
Vin Diesel got that Asian market. A flop in North American, xXx: Return of Xander Cage only grossed $44 million on an $85 million budget but added $300 million internationally, essentially guaranteeing future xXx movies. This movie made more in its opening weekend in China than it did in its domestic release. Considering the massive success The Fast and the Furious movies have found across the Pacific it should come as no surprise that Vin Diesel is a massive star there. Add in Donnie Yen (who's pretty enjoyable) and Kris Wu (who I guess DJs a lot in this movie) and xXx is a certified box office hit. So if you're reading this in China, this isn't really a Remember This? but more of a, why are you reviewing this months later? thing.
xXx: Return of Xander Cage opens in the most ridiculous way possible. Super special agent recruiter Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L Jackson) is pitching the xXx program on the hottest, freshest talent he can find, Neymar Jr. in a restaurant somewhere in China. After Neymar thwarts a robbery with his soccer skillz a satellite crashes down on them, sending Gibbons and Neymar out in a literal blaze of fire. This scene also lets Jackson provide exposition for what the xXx franchise is all about for those of us who haven't seen either of the previous installments, which I personally appreciated because the Wikipedia plot summary for the first one didn't make any sense.
Off to the Dominican Republic now where Xander Cage is living as a sort of Uber Popular Xtreme God who uses his powers of Xtreme Sportz to provide the locals with the necessary cable box to watch a soccer game while he beds the most beautiful of ladies. He's got it made and is apparently living off the grid after faking his own death at some point in the franchise (possibly to get out of xXx 2) until CIA agent Jane Marke (Collette) comes-a-knocking needing the most Xtreme Secret Agent on Earth to thwart a group of terrorists that stole the satellite crashing device from a secret board meeting of sorts.
Xander flies off to someplace, I want to say London but I'm not actually sure, anyways it doesn't matter, puts on a massive fur coat and gets the location of the terrorists in exchange for having sex with a literal tentful of supermodels. Xander Cage is truly a man of the people.
Now that he knows where to go he has to get his Xtreme Gang together because apparently even Xander Cage needs backup. In a getting-the-gang-together montage that almost makes Suicide Squad look like a competent movie we are introduced to Super Sniper/Token Lesbian Adele Wolfe (Rose), Guy Who Crashes Carz, Tennyson (Rory McCann) and a DJ, Nicks (Wu). This motley crew gathers on some sort of super airplane where Marke tries dishing out orders until Xander says, "nah bitch, we do thingz my way" and sends the entire squadron of decidedly not-Xtreme soldiers led by former NFL Tight End Tony Gonzalez out the cargo door plummeting to some sort of fate. Then Xander meets Becky Clearidge (Nina Dobrev), the uber smart tech geek girl who joins the long list of women who just want some Xander dick. She sexily puts body armor on Vin Diesel's shredded bod and then he goes off to thwart terror with backflips.
In the Philippines, which is where the terrorists are, everybody meets at some sort of giant rave thing because I guess that's classic covert cover. We learn the "terrorists" are actually rogue xXx agents and they have the magic satellite crashing device because they don't trust the heads of government with it. This new ragtag group is Xiang (Yen), Serena (Padukone), Talon (Tony Jaa) and Hawk (Michael Bisping). If you've been keeping track that makes three athletes now. At least Bisping's UFC career gives him some sort of Xtreme cred (I think? I don't know what the crossover is between UFC and X-Games but I imagine there might be some). Oh, but Talon and Hawk aren't at this meeting or something so they're still bad guys for another half hour or so until more betrayals happen and whatnot.
So now the whole gang is together and more stuff happens and there's explosions and dirt bike chases on water and parkour and flip kicking of electrical wires and magic boxing gloves and generally as much Xtreme stuff as you can imagine. To be completely honest I only watched this movie because I thought it would be stupid and bad and I would have fun mocking it but I completely underestimated Vin Diesel. This movie breaks all concepts of filmed stupidity. If there's a wheel of stupid it loops around it countless times. It breaks down the space-time continuum to become some sort of watchable movie, hell maybe even enjoyable. I'm not actually sure if I actually enjoyed it or I merely ironically enjoyed it. I'm actually leaning towards the former. I think I have submitted to the power of Vin Diesel and Mountain Dew.
That isn't to say this is a good movie in the traditional sense of the word. DJ Caruso's direction is so hopped up on Red Bull that is can't stay still for longer than a second unless it is doing a slo-mo scan of a female figure. Absolutely none of the action scenes land. Various people do what on paper sounds cool, but on the film it comes as a flat mess with the messy uncoordinated cutting neutering the performers. There is a fantastic idea of an action scene late in the film in which the giant plane is falling in a way the produces weightlessness for the combatants inside, but Caruso doesn't treat it as such.
Frazier proves himself to be a far-distant second place in the list of writers named F Scott. The script here is exactly what you would expect from an Xtreme James Bond film. Various "plot twists" clutter up the story to appear to give it substance. Frazier treats Xander Cage the same way seemingly every female character does, as a super sex god bad ass. Xander is placed so far above every situation that there is absolutely no sense of danger. Surrounded by guys with guns pointed at him, he just quips his way out of it with lines deemed too cheesey for 80s action movies.
This is not a good movie. This is not even a decent movie. It is an incredibly stupid movie. It's a poorly acted, badly directed movie. It features fan service for a franchise that doesn't have any fans. By all counts this should be one of the worst movies of the year but it's not. It breaks through the stupidity floor and finds a sense of enjoyment below the basement. One senses that it is a few tweaks and a director upgrade away from being a great parody film. I personally can't wait to see what crazy, xtreme shit Vin Diesel and the gang get up in the next installment of this stupid franchise.
Schurmann Score - 6/10
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