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xXx [2002]


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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

For a movie that would like to think of itself as the future of the action / espionage picture, xXx uses a surprising number of jokes and stunts lifted directly from the Roger Moore Bond era while the actual premise resembles a sex-change for Nikita. Vin Diesel's Xander Cage--an extreme sports daredevil recruited by spymaster Samuel L Jackson for a covert mission in Prague--may be Blofeld-bald, pumped-up with testosterone, tattooed like a graffiti-covered wall and given to driving sports cars off bridges for fun, but he turns out to be a disappointingly square goodie-goodie when the quips and bullets are flying. Even the slinky heroine (Asia Argento), a double agent within a mad ex-Soviet gang called Anarchy 99, laughs at the idea that a walking cue ball with three Xs tattooed on his neck could ever be a secret agent.

There's one stunt scene that will be remembered as a classic, as xXx triggers an avalanche and snowboards ahead of the fall. But there's too much of the falling-out-of-planes, straddling-and-defusing-jet-propelled-germ-bombs, blasting-every-baddie-in-the-place business that makes it too familiar. Enough material for several great trailers, but next time they'll need a script. --Kim Newman

On the DVD: xXx comes loud and proud to DVD, with Dolby 5.1 sound and the kind of sharp screen transfer you'd expect for a movie of this magnitude. From beautiful scrolling menus based on the tattoo artwork to the brash music, this disc epitomises everything an extreme sports release should be: special features are offered in the "Zander Zone" and include a whole host of behind-the-scenes action and commentaries, made all the more interesting by Rob Cohen's reluctance to use CGI and Vin Diesel's willingness to be thrown in at the deep end. If there's one thing you should avoid, though, it's the Gavin Rossdale music video--unless of course you want to see a grown man's vanity on screen. --Nikki Disney

Editorial
Special Features

Director's Commentary
"XXX A filmmaker's Diary" featurette
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" music video - Gavin Rossdale
Theatrical trailer
Weblinks
Anamorphic - 1:2.40
DolbyDigital 5.1 Surround
Editorial
Synopsis

This amped action drama stars Vin Diesel as Xander (aka Triple X), a rebellious extreme sports star with a mission to defy authority and create anarchy. In the dramatic opening scene of the movie, Xander pulls an outrageous serious of stunts with the help of a band of similar-minded jocks, broadcasts the whole event live onto the Internet with a network of strategically placed digital cameras, and then avoids being captured by the squadron of police who pursue him. When Triple X is later taken into custody, Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson), a representative from a government agency, hires the chiseled athlete and turns him into a secret agent with a mission to travel to Prague and collapse a dangerous terrorist cell operated by Yorgi (Martin Csokas) and the seductive Yelena (Asia Argento). Triple X is quickly drawn into Yorgi's lair, a stunning chateau situated in the mountains that is equipped with every high-tech modern amenity imaginable, along with a sizeable team of extra-large Slav bodyguards, a laboratory staffed by top scientists, and an always-ready gaggle of gorgeous concubines. Nonstop stunts, pounding hard-core music, elaborate sets, and inventive costumes make this Rob Cohen-directed adrenaline overload a visually exciting, aurally engaging, highly entertaining success.

laughable
Review date: 2008-06-07 Rating: 2 out of 10

and another vin disel starring time waster.this is actually worser than fast and the furious if that is possible well apprantly it is

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Reviews


XXX or ZZZ...
Review date: 2008-04-25 Rating: 4 out of 10



Star Vin Diesel and director Rob Cohen reunite to update the spy genre but the vehicle they've chosen is somewhat inferior to their previous joint effort, the audacious speed-jockey opera `The Fast And The Furious'. While not a complete washout, `XXX' seems determined to shoehorn the extreme sports action into the creaky, clich?-driven 007-retread of a plot instead of liberating it and while there are plenty of dazzling stunts and effects they seem unwisely strung together in a desperate attempt to deflect the many shortcomings in Rich Wilkes' script.
Cohen clearly has a talent for colourful visuals and kinetic editing (three editors worked on the project) and he's making a case for becoming the pre-eminent action specialist working today but it's a half-hearted bid--his lack of interest in providing more content to give the razzle-dazzle some emotional weight indicates an inability to climb to the A-list of his genre's directors.
Diesel disappoints this time as well; his heart doesn't seem to be in the project and though his silky bass-baritone delivers his bad jokes with ease he seems more focused on trying to develop a brand name than sticking to the matter at hand.
The film is flawed ? building a doomsday boat in land-locked Prague is one of the daftest things I have ever seen pass the nose of a continuity expert ? but, it is action packed and if that?s your bag, then there?s enough of it here.

Noisy video game style fun
Review date: 2008-01-16 Rating: 6 out of 10

What exactly do you want here? Shakespeare? Vin Diesel plays a video game style action hero/antihero who lives life for driving sports cars off bridges. Like a certain substance I could mention it does exactly what it says on the tin. If this kind of movie is not your bag, well so be it, but if it is then this is high octane fun with some good stunts, some good one liners, and the antihero wins the day and gets the girl. It is noisy, there are explosions, and yes on a couple of occasions you get to see a great deal of bare flesh, enjoy it on the simple level that it is designed for and you will not be disappointed.

ACCOMPLISHES WHAT IT SET OUT TO ACCOMPLISH
Review date: 2007-08-08 Rating: 8 out of 10

As the Bond franchise has worn on past its use-by date with not a fresh or new idea in sight, it should hardly be surprising that competition on the espionage-based action-adventure front is emerging. And to be quite frank, the competition doesn't exactly have a tough field to fight on. Three of the last four Bond films have been utter tripe, with the most recent in particular an utter embarrassment in the face of this upstart. Even Licence To Kill isn't all that interesting compared to some of the recent cloak and dagger superheroes we've seen in film or otherwise.

XXX succeeds where Bond has failed by setting aside any conventions about class or preening, and getting right back into the guts of what a visual medium should be about. Deisel's Xander Cage doesn't expect the viewer to be impressed by overused dialogue. Instead, he communicates through a relative economy of words and lets his actions do most of the talking. The gadgets or stunt skills demonstrated in early parts of the film have a purpose later on in the story.

It is this latter point where XXX utterly caned Bond 20. In XXX, we see our hero steal a car from the kind of man anyone who grew up during the 1970s or 1980s would love to stick on a pole and drive it off a bridge. While the snowboarding sequence crossed the line between extreme and ridiculous, Vin Deisel makes this work because he looks, sounds, and even generally acts the part. After Bond 20's "See? I can be X-TREME too!" opening, it's no wonder that rumours are persistent that Pierce Brosnan will not be coming back.

But to get away from the Bond/XXX comparisons for a second, let's look at what this film was trying to accomplish. You can have all the extreme sports conventions and secret agent plots in the world, but it is all for naught if you don't entertain your audience. In that sense, XXX works by diving right into the Indiana Jones style of action, setting a pace that gives the viewer little, if any time to consider the improbabilities of the situation. Which is one area that any action film thrives upon - if you give your audience time to think about what they've just seen and how probable it is, you're dead in the water.

Going back to comparisons between XXX and Bond for a second, it seems a fixture of this kind of series to have improbable women with improbable personalities doing (comparatively) mildly improbable things. If the action is only as good as the main antagonist, then the dialogue and interpersonal relationships are only as good as the leading woman. XXX has Asia Argento. The last five Bond films have had Halle Berry, Sophie Marceau, Teri Hatcher, Izabella Scorupco, and Carey Lowell. Rosamund Pike and Famke Janssen notwithstanding, I rest my case in this department.

Getting away from that overworked comparison again, I am definitely not a XXX zealot. There are numerous problems with the film that become obvious when you look past the surface. None of the characters have anything remotely resembling a third dimension, and many of them don't even approach a second. As previously hinted, some of the stunts are so ridiculous that they almost undo the film. Even when your pace is so fast that you're not giving the audience time to think, you can't just openly defy the laws of physics. A hero narrowly dodging bullets, an audience will accept. A hero running from the centre of a nuclear explosion (or an avalanche) past the edge without the aid of a miracle, they won't.

Unfortunately, it seems that XXX is destined not to become even a two-episode franchise. Deisel has already left the series, and the same director who helmed Bond 20 looks set to direct episode two. A two-punch knockout, in other words. Given that XXX is firmly rooted in the time it was made, however, that's probably a good thing. In all, I gave it a seven out of ten. Jump in expecting merely to be entertained, and you can't go wrong.

A buffed-up 007 without the suavity
Review date: 2006-07-22 Rating: 8 out of 10

The acquisition of polished good manners and social skills is, I suspect, less important in today's culture than it used to be. Therefore, Vince Diesel's Xander Cage action hero will be as big a hit with current, younger, theater audiences as the elegant Bond (JAMES Bond, if you please) was with earlier generations.

XXX is the first release in what will certainly be a continuing series of Xander Cage adventures. Hollywood knows a gold mine when it stumbles over it. In this installment, Cage is an anti-social, tattooed Bad Boy hooked on extreme sports stunts, who's cornered into joining a U.S. intelligence agency by Agent Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson). After a suitable period of, um, competency testing, America's newest hero is sent to Prague to gather information about a megalomaniacal anarchist named Yorgi (Marton Csokas). Of course, anybody keeping the world safe for democracy has to have the potential reward of TLC from an appreciative Babe. In XXX, the latter role is supplied by Yelena (Asia Argento), who starts out as Yorgi's hard-edged and edgy moll. Or is she? And it's a long overdue opportunity for American viewers to see something of Prague, a truly beautiful city that's apparently recovering nicely from its gloomy days behind the Iron Curtain.

The nifty gadgets and death-defying stunts in XXX are satisfying and spectacular, especially the sequence involving the "fresh powder". However, since it's the rare action film nowadays that doesn't have eye-popping FX, those in this one simply meet what has become the average expectation. What lifts XXX above three stars is Xander's anti-establishment bad attitude. Had he been dressed up in a tux at any point, the total effect would have been lost. Once the novelty of his persona wears off - soon, I think, in my case - his Big Screen feats of derring-do will become so much Mindless Entertainment. Now, don't get me wrong. The periodic Bond flicks are mindless also, but the current actor in the title role, Pierce Brosnan, at least has demonstrated a capability for doing a thinking man's espionage caper, specifically the excellent screen adaptation of John le Carr's THE TAILOR OF PANAMA. Somehow, I don't see Diesel up to anything of such quality in the near future, if indeed ever.

Perhaps it's just the sour grapes of an older movie goer, but down deep I'll maintain that Sean Connery's Bond (JAMES Bond, if you please), and perhaps even Brosnan's, could wipe up the floor with Xander Cage. Old age and cunning will trip up youth and inexperience.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Vin Diesel|Samuel L. Jackson

Creators:
Vin Diesel|Samuel L. Jackson (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
EAN: 5035822339835
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 1
Format: PAL, Widescreen,
Release date: 2003-03-10
Number of discs: 1
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 119 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2002-08-09
Language: English (Subtitles For The Hearing Impaired)
Language: English (Subtitled)
Language: Hindi (Subtitled)
Language: Czech (Original Language)
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: German (Original Language)
Language: Russian (Original Language)
Language: Spanish (Original Language)

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