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Paul Greenwood reviews
Director:
- Rob Cohen
(Daylight, Dragonheart, The Fast and the Furious, xXx)
Cast:
- Xander Cage: Vin Diesel
Yelena: Asia Argento
Yorgi: Marton Csokas
Agent Gibbons: Samuel L. Jackson
Agent Shavers: Michael Roof
J.J: Eve
Senator Dick Hotchkiss: Tom Everett
Agent Jim McGrath: Thomas Ian Griffith
Milan Sova: Richy M=FCller
Kirill: Werner D=E4hn
I think I might have gone deaf.If there is a louder film this year than xXx, then I’d probably do wellto give it a miss, lest my eardrums give incompletely. Fortunately in this case, the decibel level is directlyproportionate to the fun, as this is one of the best action films I’ve seenin ages. While somewhat rough and ready and lacking in sophistication for asecret agent caper, it will fill the time nicely until 007 himself returnsnext month. What xXx has done in the meantime is up the ante in terms ofspectacle and stunt ridiculousness and, while certainly not surpassingBond, has given its makers something to think about, especially with twosequels already planned.
In a cheeky prologue,a Bond-esque character is assassinated in a Praguenightclub. This is a source of some concern for his bosses who have lostseveral agents in pursuit of an arch villain. Opting for a fresh approach,Agent Gibbons pressgangs a selection of criminals and societal misfits witha view to moulding a different breed of agent. Enter Diesel as Xander Cage(or X), extreme sports enthusiast and purveyor of death defying stuntsperformed and filmed for an underground web site. He is an authoritydespising maverick with a back catalogue of crazy and illegal antics,including stealing a senator’s sports car and driving it off a bridge intoa ravine.
Faced with the choice of prison or taking on a mission for the agency, Xsoon finds himself in Prague trying to infiltrate a gang of car thieves..The gangs agenda goes much deeper though – they are in fact a group ofanarchists intent on unleashing a deadly chemical weapon on the public. X(now dubbed xXx by Gibbons) pursues them, at first just to stay out ofjail, but soon he is doing it for kicks and finally out of a sense of dutywhen it comes time for him to save the world.
So much for the plot then, your standardEuro-nutter-wants-to-do-bad-things-to-lots-of-people nonsense. It matterslittle when the thrills are this good. Skydiving, wacky races, motorcyclemayhem and plenty of fisticuffs, gunfights and big explosions all serve asthe warm ups for the money shot of the year: the sequence where Xsnowboards down a mountain while being chased by an avalanche (suspend yourdisbelief at the door, by the way) is absolutely astounding and drew manygasps and very nearly a round of applause from the audience.
For the rest of the action, I’d expected a slightly more tongue-in-cheekapproach, but for the most part it’s played pretty straight. I have to sayI’m not totally convinced by Diesel’s acting credentials. He has presenceand charisma, but he doesn’t seem hugely comfortable with lots of dialogueor romancing Ms Argento and he may do well not to try stretching too farbeyond the role of action hero. Indeed, most of the credit for the bigman’s display here probably has to go the stunt man and the computergraphics man, who more than earn their paychecks. Give xXx a go if youthink you’re hard enough.
Review copyright © Paul Greenwood, 2002.E-mail Paul Greenwood
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.