Director: DJ Caruso
Cast Headliners: Vin Diesel, Samuel L Jackson, Donnie Yen, others
Original Release Date: January 20, 2017
The XXX
franchise has never been one for being good in a manner of quality.
Nor has it been one for any kind of subtlety. Much like Vin Diesel's
other main franchises in Fast and the Furious and Riddick, it excels
when it s going as crazy as it can. The same applies here and this
time with the right star in place since Xander Cage was the “best”
hero for this series that he deserves mention in the title. Sorry Ice
Cube but you'll have to (apparently) step aside. Xander is back to
the Zone.
The movie starts
with something big involving Agent Gibbons(Samuel L Jackson, once
again at his usual decent role in something that's always been a sort
of prototypical version of Nick Fury) and one of the many smaller
cameo roles in Neymar as himself. It's up to Xander Cage(Vin Diesel)
to come out of retirement and save the world. Sounds familiar. In
many ways it's very much like the same formula as the last two but
particularly the first. It drops plots from being too deep in
exchange for crazy fights and varying range of humorous quips.
The film
essentially boils down to a tale of two rival agent teams (ala Fast
6). The movie attempts to give Xander his own “Suicide Squad”,
replete with derivative introduction scenes and colorful freeze frame
biographies. Xander takes lead, always the likable protagonist with
his edgy tough guy , slightly humorous attitude and the return of the
big fur coat. This is why they brought back Diesel, because it's hard
not to like him as any (of his many similar) hero roles. On his side
he's got strict leader Agent Marke(Toni Collette who does nothing too
special) , wisecracking sniper Adele(Ruby Rose), youthful DJ
Nicks(Kris Wu), stunt driver Tennyson (Game Of Throne's The Hound
actor Rory McCann, always decent), and “comic relief” tech master
Becky(Nina Doberev, a low point). This increased ensemble of
characters gives Xander more to play off of and expands the scope of
action, and leads to some banter and mixed range of humor. But no one
quite leaves an impression as Diesel's trademark Xander.
On the enemy team,
there's the fierce woman Serena(Deepika Padukone), brutish
Hawk(athlete Michael Bisping), wacky jumper Talon(Tony Jaa), and the
main foe Xiang(Donnie Yen). It's great to see Donnie Yen appearing in
American blockbusters, as he brings a crazy action and humor presence
to rival Diesel's. If anything he's just slightly underutilized.
So while the
characters, plot, script and all the expected are cheesy as heck as
one would expect (and it runs really long at times too, with plot
holes) one can't deny the action and excitement. Director DJ Caruso
is a great choice as he brings in a decent competency from things
such as Disturbia and Eagle Eye. The movie brought back Xander and
it's also brought back its increased use of crazy techno and rock
music along with “extreme sports”. The action scenes , when they
do pop up semi-often through the “witty” dialogue slog are great.
There's some cheesily insane things done from skiing through jungles
to riding transforming motorcycles over the water. There's
zero-gravity kung fu, there's fist-fights in the middle of rush hour
traffic. The variety is impressive.
It's the kind of
film that if one turns their brain off and likes the players involved
that makes for decent dumb fun. It's not a high bar to pass, but it's
likely the best XXX to date. It's script and pacing holds it back
from the best of FnF, but it's good to have the good elements back
and leaves it for a possibly interesting place in the future. 7.1 out
of 10
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