Let me relay to you my idea of a concept of absolute Hell. Imagine this: you’re sat at a PC, trying to write a screenplay for a xXx sequel that no one has asked for and all the while, Vin Diesel looms behind you. Stinking of Monster Energy Drink and reading over your shoulder, he constantly makes demands and self obsessed revisions like “make me cooler”, “make everyone think I’m funnier”, “make all the women wanna fuck me” and “have me take my shirt off more”.
It’s only an idea, sure, but upon casting my eyes upon the actual xXx threequel (helpfully subtitled Return Of Xander Cage just in case you hadn’t figured out Diesel has returned to the franchise), I don’t think my vision of a torturous afterlife is that farfetched after all. However, what is a relief is that rather than being the self-promoting bilge of the first xXx, the 3rd movie ultimately embraced the idiotic carnage of the second and delivered a living cartoon that adorably still insists phases like “EXTREME!”, “BALLER!” and “DOPE!” should still be in the regular vocabulary rotation of a man of 50.
Hey, guess what? Remember in the xXx sequel we heard that the original extreme agent, Xander Cage, had been killed offscreen in Bora Bora? Well that was totally a smokescreen because the slapheaded adrenaline junkie has been alive all along, living in self imposed exile in the Dominican Republic and sounds his time doing good for the people while whizzing around on skis and skateboards. However, he’s soon approached by stern CIA agent Jane Marke to come out of retirement and aid his country once more.
It seems that someone has invented a new piece of tech with a typically melodramatic name (“Pandora’s Box” in case you were wondering) that can make satellites fall out of the sky and pancake specific targets – namely Cage’s old boss, Gibbons. Worse yet, the Pandora’s Box has been stolen by a crack team led by the lethally nimble Xiang and Marke needs Cage to retrieve it. Of course, you don’t tangle with a professional crew of eccentric spies without assembling one yourself and before you can say “hold on, isn’t this just the plot of a latter Fast & Furious movie” Cage has gathered together a gang of his own highly trained misfits – hey, just like in a latter Fast & Furiois movie!
So now the race is on to corner Xiang and retrieve the Pandora’s Box before it starts raining satellites in fairly political places, but while Cage’s rival proves to be every inch the daring, out of control, extreme sport loving superspy as he is, the addition of Xiang’s sultry teammate complicates matters even more. You see, it turns out that they are all ex-xXx (Wait, doesn’t that technically make them all xXXx?) and if that’s the truth then maybe the story Cage has been fed by the CIA has been pure bullcrap. Can Cage figure out you the bad guys truly are while doing plenty of stunts that rank high on the gnarly and sick scale?
I don’t think it could be classed as a massive shock to discover that xXx: Return Of Xander Cage (too cool for the word “the”, apparently), is a massive, silly lump of weaponized idiocy, but it’s still a massive relief to discover that for all the delusional vanity projects that Vin Diesel insists on starring in, it’s actually pretty fun. Oh, it’s still incredibly irritating at times as the flick is absolutely crammed with moments programmed to brainwash us into thinking Xander Cage is the coolest guy in existence – just keep count of how many times we cut to one of Cage’s crew snickering immediately after our hero says some bland one liner that’s in order to convince us that it was fucking hilarious – and yet, if I had to compare 2017 Xander Cage to 2017 Dominic Toretto, it’s the former that surprisingly gets on my tits the least. I mean, at least Xander is friendlier, slightly less patronising and doesn’t mumble literally all of his lines; in fact, it’s actually quite refreshing watching the notoriously rumbly actor speak in something that actually resembles a human being, even if the movie still reeks of a gargantuan ego trip.
That’s right, if you can stomach moments where various women can’t help but indulge in mass lovemaking with the aging, wife-beater clad stud, the movie plays amusingly fast and loose with action physics much in the same way Ice Cube’s entry did and delivers stunningly stupid setpieces so audacious, you suspect they were planned out by filming two toddlers hurling their toys around.
One scene sees both Diesel and an extremely game Donnie Yen leap on tricked out dirtbikes that suddenly sprout skis like something out of 80s Saturday morning cartoon, MASK, to continue their chase over water and wave and another features the always faintly irritating Ruby Rose snipering foes while wrapped up and twirling in Cirque du Soleil style sheets like she’s trying to emulate a P!nk gig. However, the exagerated action is so far fetched, it’s tough not to be be amused at the dedication to the filmmakers to bring this nonsense to the screen with the energy that they do. In fact, while the movie often ends up making the likes of the G.I. Joe films seem as gritty as Black Hawk Down in comparison, it’s the insistence that everyone featured on screen is cool as fuck that ends up bringing things down a bit.
While we’ve already covered Diesels latest endeavor to paint himself as a flawless cinematic superhuman alongside the infallible likes of Dominic Toretto and Richard B. Riddick, you milage of Return Of Xander Cage will probably lie with the rather huge supporting cast, all of whom have been armed with a ludicrous amount of quirks. Some work. Donnie Yen just looks genuinely stoked to be there and I have to admit, it’s a little infectious; Toni Collette is visibly having a ball purring out lines like “Master says, “Fetch”, and the bitch listens” while wearing power suits that could light a small city. Other characters tend to get lost in the shuffle like an underutilised Tony Jaa, Rory McCann’s punchy stunt driver, or Deepika Padukone’s female lead. But some truly double down by being toe curlingly off putting such as the aforementioned smugness of Rose, or Nina Dobrev’s walking HR disaster of tech support who often feels like an unfunny character rejected by the writing staff of Archer. However, I was truly surprised at how much I was willing to forgive when Ice Cube wanders in for a barely three minute cameo where he arrives, blows everything up and essentially leaves after doing his part for God, country and franchise continuity.
No movie that considers such dialogue as “Now it’s a party” as witty repartee should (or could) ever truly be taken seriously, but the main person laughing at Return Of Xander Cage actually seems to refreshingly be the film itself. It’s a massive improvement over the first film that seemed to want us to take all of this bollocks at least 60% seriously, but when you have Samuel L. Jackson showing up to cheat behind Nick Fury’s back with his other disfigured spy master and an honest to God call back to arguably the worst coat in action cinema, this is one return that despite all proof to the contrary, feels weirdly welcome.
🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 