By Jason Yon
Elm Staff Writer
Vin Diesel makes a not-so-triumphant return to the absurd world of xXx in “xXx: Return of Xander Cage.” For those of you who aren’t familiar with this franchise, which has recently become a trilogy, xXx is based on the notion that the NSA secretly hires professional and extreme athletes and puts them into teams of super spy action heroes, for lack of a better term. As Director Gibbons, played by Samuel L. Jackson, puts it, xXx’s mission is to “Kick some ass, get the girl, and try to look dope while you’re doing it,” which is pretty much all this movie amounts to.
If the story even matters, it begins with Xander Cage, played by Vin Diesel, being called out of retirement after Director Gibbons is killed. Cause of death: a satellite turned into a deadly projectile by an anonymous terrorist hacker. The NSA sets Cage up with a fancy carrier jet and a team of military commandos, which he promptly ejects out the rear of the jet in favor of his old team of adrenaline junkies from the xXx program. His team of equally bizarre and crazy misfits consists of a baller DJ, a video game playing sniper, and a conspiracy theorist stunt driver.
“xXx: Return of Xander Cage” suffers mainly due to the pure absurdity in everything it does, from Vin Diesel’s crazy large coats to the constantly over-sexualized characters. The movie shows off nameless female models and Vin Diesel at every chance it gets. On top of this, Vin Diesel wears laughably large Macklemore-style fur coats. Ice Cube also makes a cameo as Darius Stone, the xXx agent he played in the second movie: “xXx: State of the Union”.This happens with his own rap song, “Thank God,” playing in the background with the lyrics “thank god the gangster’s back” are cause for an involuntary eye roll The pure absurdity continues into all of the fight and action sequences. It is reminiscent of Jackie Chan’s fight sequences, with humor and crazy stunts, but without the charm and intelligence. A majority of the action scenes are over the top. They range from water dirt-bikes to downhill jungle skiing to free falls from exploding planes. The actors themselves obviously don’t perform these stunts. Instead, real life adrenaline junkies, the ones who would be most suited for the fictional xXx program, perform the stunts. Others are caked with GGI. Donnie Yen (Xiang) is the only actor who does most of his own stunts. Furthermore, the camera shakes and cuts so much and so fast that it is hard to focus even on the stunts that are real. The cheap CGI and crazy scenarios made each action sequence unintentionally humorous.
“xXx: Return of Xander Cage” is by far one of the craziest and most absurd actions movies in recent memory. Some of the actors very noticeably phone in their performances, and the film itself was an obvious attempt to return to a failed franchise. This movie’s only entertaining aspects were the ludicrous characters and sequences. Under no circumstances would I recommend “xXx: Return of Xander Cage” to anyone. For those who are curious enough to see it, expect its release on Netflix in a few months.
Score: D-