Product: xXx [VHS] (2002)
Rating: 3.0
Vin deserves better
In XXX, Vin Diesel plays Xander Cage, a 3 time convict (who also happens to be an extreme sports expert) who is recruited by Samuel L Jackson (who seems to take a role in any movie no matter how bad it is) to become a secret agent. The movie includes your typical hero, maniacal bad guy, and the girlfriend on the side. The "twists and turns" are predictable and typical cliche's of the genre--the bad girl is really a good girl, the cop turns to the evil side. Some of special FX are completely unbelievable (Xander can "outrun" an avalanche on skis???)XXX is a 2 hour assault on the eyes and ears. From begining to end, the viewer is attacked with fast camerawork, and background music so loud, we'd need subtitles to understand what the characters speaking English are saying. Vin Diesel is obviously the star of this movie, but the rest of the characters are flat and uninvolving. Some scenes drag on and on (such as Xander's training scenes), while the earlier scenes, which would have given more insight to the characters flash by so quickly you'd miss them if you blink.XXX is obviously trying to portray itself as a "guy movie", but even these blowemup types of movies deserve a good script and plot. Modern action classics such as Die Hard, The Terminator and True Lies have stood the test of time because they managed to incorporate plot and character development along with shootings and explosions.I can only pray that for XXX2, the producers will take out an explosion or 2 in favor of an actual script. Although you wouldn't know it by watching this movie, there lies a good actor inside of Vin Diesel. So after this review, why am I giving this movie 3 stars??? Because Vin Diesel proves to be a charismatic actor who does his best to pull off this nonsense of a movie. All in all, XXX is possibly one of the worst movies I've ever seen--but I'd watch it again just to see Vin Diesel for 2 hours :)