Product: xXx (2002)
Rating: 3.0
Death to 007
It happens early in the movie. A suave agent in a tuxedo trys to outwit the bad guys and is killed. It is a message that Director Rob Cohen is getting out....Cold war James Bond agents cannot handle the baddies of the 21st century.Xander Cage is an extreme stunt reckloose who has a criminal record and freely breaks the law in his own personal cause. This gets the attention of the NSA and CIA who is having problems with a group called Anarchy99.Cage is recruited by Gibbons (played by Sam Jackson) and is "encouraged" to do good for the USA, even though he is the typical anti-hero (actually a ripoff of Snake Plisken from Escape from New York). He infiltrates Anarchy99 and befriends the leader Yorgi and is immediately drawn to Yelena (Asia Argento). He discovers their plot to gas the beautiful city of Prague and sets off to stop them.Xander is played by Vin Diesel, an actor that plopped on the radar screen when he produced and directed his own films years ago. That caught the attention of Steven Spielberg who cast him in "Saving Private Ryan". That led to more roles, in movies like Pitch Black and Boiler Room, but he really got noticed with "Fast and the Furious". Vin does have a charismatic aura around him, unless he talks. Luckily Xander is a man of action, not one to quote Shakespeare for 10 minutes.The movie itself is a ripoff of the proto-typical James Bond movie. XXX has his own M, his own Q, his own gadget car, he fights a bond-like Eurotrash badguy who needs to elaborately setup a weapon of mass destruction that could be done with a simple set of suitcase bombs. And of course, Bond always gets the girl and the ending is very bondish as well. However, it feels more like a ripoff than an homage.Some of the stunts had people laughing and my eyes rolling. The stunts with the motorcycles were laugh out loud funny, but some were excellent, such as Xander bridge jumping with the Vette and him riding out the avalanche of his own causing.Asia Argento, daughter of famed Director Dario Argento also smolders, even with the piercing stares. However, she and Diesel have no chemisty and have some of the worst kissing skills I have ever seen on celluloid. She is given little to do and that is a shame, because she was good in B.Monkey.The movie is pretty generic and nothing is really new. I do recommend this movie by the barest of margins because it does have it's share of excitement, objectification of women, cool gadgets and stunts that will keep all us knuckle dragging alpha males happy for the 2 hours the DVD will be playing.....Rating: C+