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Review: Jack Foley
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES: Commentary by director Rob Cohen;
xXx: A Filmmakers' Diary; 10 deleted scenes; 'Diesel Powered'
featurette; 'Building Speed: The Vehicles of xXx' featurette;
Designing the World of xXx' featurette; 3 visual effects 'How
To' featurettes; 'Adrenaline' by Gavin Rosdale music video; Theatrical
trailer; Weblinks.
THE name’s Cage, Xander Cage, but it doesn’t quite
have the same ring to it, does it? xXx (or triple X) is billed
as ‘a new breed of secret agent’, offering a more contemporary
approach to the super-spy genre capable of taking action to new
extremes.
Yet while the movie is undeniably fun in places, and boasts some
suitably over-the-top set pieces, its pre-occupation with attempting
to out-Bond 007 invites some fairly obvious comparisons, to which
it pales into insignificance.
Vin Diesel (the moody muscle-man of Pitch Black and The
Fast and the Furious fame) stars as the secret agent in question,
a ‘three-time loser’ and extreme sports enthusiast whose
only shot of staying out of prison is to serve his country by
working as an expendable agent for the NSA.
Enlisted by Samuel L Jackson’s heavily-scarred NSA veteran,
Cage must travel to Prague to infiltrate a gang of adrenalin-junkie
thugs, named Anarchy 99, and thwart their plans for world domination,
by using his questionable reputation to get close to the group’s
leader, Yorgi (Marton Csokas), an ex-Russian army commander.
In so doing, he attracts the eye of Yorgi’s beautiful but
streetwise girlfriend, Yelena (Asia Argento), while generally
butting heads with everyone from the Czech police to Yorgi’s
trigger-happy henchmen.
The difference between xXx and 007, however, is that while Bond
is committed to serving Queen and country and conducts his business
with a stiff-upper lip and a smattering of charm, Cage’s
rugged alternative couldn’t give a damn about saving the
world and has all the finesse of a rapper at the opera.
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Yet while all the components are in place for a rollicking adventure
(from gadgets and babes, to quips and explosions), xXx simply
doesn’t cut it quite as spectacularly as it should.
Diesel, in particular, may have bags of charisma when playing
the anti-hero, yet the moment he starts to care, he loses his
edge, while his inability to deliver a really decent quip places
him among the Stallone and Schwarzenegger wannabes, rather than
the Connery or Brosnan heroes he clearly aspires to.
A lack of a genuinely great villain with which to trade blows
(both physical and verbal) does him no favours, either, while
Michael Roof’s Q equivalent, Toby Lee Shavers, lacks any
of the qualities which made Desmond Llewellyn so endearing - even
his gadgets (rocket-firing cars, binoculars which allow Diesel
to see through walls, or beneath clothes) seem borrowed from any
spy’s locker-room.
Which leaves us with the babes and the action, where director
Rob Cohen’s movie really delivers. Argento, in particular,
smoulders as the feisty Yelena (her attitude-laden performance
actually gives Diesel a run for his money), while the action is
mostly well-staged.
Highlights include the opening stunt involving a car and a bridge,
a motorcycle chase through a Colombian drugs field and Cage attempting
to out-snowboard an avalanche, and they just about make-up for
the gaping lapses in logic (audiences are expected to believe
that Cage can dismantle bombs and fire all manner of weapons with
less than a week’s training). Yet even they lack the sophistication
to poke fun at the genre in the way that the likes of True Lies
did, so here's hoping that future films in the series live up
to the expectations set for them by director, Cohen, who wants
to rip up the Bond template.
Triple X is clearly intended to deliver a secret agent capable
of appealing to the X-box generation and goes about delivering
its thrills with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer cracking a
walnut. It’s fast, furious and incredibly dumb, yet while
its success in America has already helped to spawn a sequel and
should appeal to die-hard action fans here, viewers will still
be left with the opinion than nobody does it better than a certain
Mr Bond.
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