Product: xXx (2002)
Rating: 4.0
Disenfranchised James Bond, make no mistake - but fun!
Trying to differentiate "xXx" from James Bond by mentioning James Bond everywhere pretty much clinches the fact that the Diesel vehicle is really a James Bond movie without the pompous British society. I laughed to myself in the theatre when people were saying on the way out, "Some of those stunts were just ridiculous." Of course they were ridiculous. If you want to see real stunts, watch the X-Games. If you want to see a big Hollywood movie full of laughable but adrenaline-pumping stunts made for the big screen, "xXx" is for you. It has more plot than I expected, fairly well held together with plenty of openings for the next movie (already pretty much a given). More focus was clearly placed on getting the stunts right than getting the scenes right, so the acting isn't always top rate, but then, who believed Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist? Sporting a PG-13 rating, this is a good film for the teenage boy action set, with strong anti-smoking and anti-drinking messages. (Xander Cage never takes a drink himself.) Older female fans like myself were disappointed by the lack of the *other* kind of Diesel action, but still had a blast anyway.