Product: xXx [VHS] (2002)
Rating: 1.0
A Whole Lotta Nuttin'.
This was just thunderously bad. Buffed "multicultural" Vin Diesel is Xander Cage in "xXx," directed by Rob Cohen who gave us "The Fast and the Furious." Cage is an extreme sports athlete who gets recruited by Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson, who's too good for a movie like this) as a spy and gets sent to Prague. From there, "xXx" morphs into to a James Bond film on steroids for teens with short attention spans. Cohen isn't concerned about giving us an interesting spy film that thrills; he's more concerned about pumping our adrenaline. But even on that level he fails. The stunts are the most absurd I have ever witnessed. Diesel cruises through a series of action sequences that flirt ever so closely with death, and he emerges from all of them completely unbruised and unscathed. I realize that movies like this require some suspension of disbelief, but this was just ridiculous. Instead of exclaiming "wow," I was rolling my eyes contemptuously every fifteen minutes. Asia Argento does little more than serve as an ornament to the story's predictable "love" subplot. She spends a good 90% of her role giving forced come-hither glares, and she speaks in horrifically broken English. The special effects are aiight, but I can get better thrills off my buddy's PS2. As with any DVD for a recently-released movie, "xXx" has a sharp picture and incredible surround sound. But that hardly matters for a film this inept. "Your performances are weak" barks Diesel in one of the movie's early scenes. Like he should talk. "zZz" is a more apt title for this low-wattage thriller.