XXX

“XXX” is basically James Bond fuelled by Mountain Dew and Doritos. It wants to prove it’s rad and extreme so badly that the only thing it’ll bust is your gut as you laugh it off the screen.

Extreme sports professional Xander ‘X’ Cage (Vin Diesel) is recruited by the NSA to infiltrate Anarchy 99, a group of terrorists who have obtained a deadly superweapon. Only this agent that doesn’t play by the rules has a chance of saving the world.

“XXX” is like a bad Aquaman story. Instead of making a true effort, it just takes a familiar tale and shoehorns ways to display the hero’s “power”. A secret agent infiltrating a terrorist organization, reporting to a supervisor he doesn’t particularly like (played by Samuel L. Jackson as Augustus Gibbons a. k. a. Black Two-Face) and falling for the bad guy’s main squeeze (Asia Argento as Yelena) while using a variety of gadgets to stop doomsday is tired. In an attempt to differentiate itself from those “old” movies that your dad likes, we’ve got a whole bunch of extreme stunts thrown in. When there’s a big problem that rears its ugly head, Xander always manages to solve it using either a) his anti-corporate, I-play-by-my-own-rules attitude and street instincts, b) driving fast, parachuting, snowboarding or c) jumping off a ramp. You wouldn’t believe how many conveniently placed ramps are found in a random drug cartel’s plantation.

This movie is dope alright. As a picture that's so bad it's good, my only true complaint is the running time: 132 minutes is a bit much. Otherwise, it’s a blast as long as you are able to openly mock it."XXX" tries so hard it’s a little embarrassing. You can feel the production team giving each other high-fives and patting themselves on the back every time Xander delivers a would-be badass line. The barrage of stunts (which are at times exciting but often distracting because the stunt doubles look NOTHING like Vin Diesel) isn’t predictable only when the writing is so awful, so flat and unimaginative that you can’t believe they went there. Everything about this picture oozes early 2000’s aimed-at-teen-audiences. The music, the casting of Diesel, the prolonged shots of women in their underwear dancing around, the cartoonish antagonists, the attitude. If you like this movie, give it 10 years. You’ll look back at it and blush out of embarrassment so hard blood will shoot out of your ears.

“XXX” is so much fun to pick apart. Even Diesel, whom I usually find charming, is not good here. I don’t know what they’re going to do for the sequels but if they’re this nutty, I’m excited. (Full-screen version on DVD, January 19, 2017)