XXX: STATE OF THE UNION(PG-13)
** (out of 5)
April 29, 2005
STARRING
Ice Cube as DARIUS STONE
Willem Dafoe as GEORGE DECKERT
Samuel L. Jackson as AUGUSTUS GIBBONS
Michael Roof as AGENT TOBY LEE SHAVERS
Xzibit as ZEKE
Scott Speedman as KYLE STEELE
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Directed by: Lee Tamahori
BY KEVIN CARR
Listen to Kevin’s radio review…
When prepping to see a sequel, I often look to the original film to plan my level of disappointment. For example, when the sequel to “Babe” stunk, I was disappointed because the first movie was so good. However, when a movie like “Troll 2” reeks to high heaven, it’s no big deal. (To be fair, “Troll 2” is a hilarious movie to watch because it is so ludicrous and silly.)
I didn’t see the first “XXX” until it hit video, and while I like Vin Diesel, I hardly considered it a masterwork in modern cinema. Oh, it was okay, and if you like Vin Diesel, it was an fine action flick. But let’s just say that the producers of the James Bond franchise had little to worry about their superspy stories being usurped by this series. (Incidentally, this new film is directed by Lee Tamahori, who most recently helmed the latest Bond flick “Die Another Day.”)
I will say that Diesel made a great generation-X spy. However, the sequel had to do without him. And with Vin Diesel unattached, this franchise needed a new XXX – a new agent with even more attitude. Their choice: Ice Cube.
Hey, at least they didn’t dip into the professional wrestling pool.
Don’t think too hard about the plot for this one. Once you wade through all the phony-baloney political mumbo jumbo and cut out all the action sequences, you have a plot that vaguely resembles Rowan Atkinson’s spy flop “Johnny English.” (You’d think if the writers were going to rip something off, they would have ripped off something good, like maybe one of the Austin Powers movies.)
In this new movie, we find Vin Diesel’s character killed off-screen during an onslaught of murders targeted at this top-secret government agency. Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) escapes with Agent Shavers (Michael Roof) and is determined to find a new agent to track down the killers. All of these murders (for some strange reason) lead to a high-level assassination conspiracy.
Ice Cube does a competent job, but he shows his acting chops about as much as he did in “Anaconda.” Tamahori relies a little too much on Ice Cube, but unfortunately the script doesn’t give him much to work with. Other actors in this like Samuel L. Jackson and Willem Dafoe are given equally thin parts, which is too bad because I really like to watch these guys work.
Scott Speedman, whom many might recognize as Keri Russell’s mumbling love interest in the WB’s “Felicity,” plays the NSA agent investigating the case. Speedman is only lukewarm in the performance, but at least he learned to speak clearly since being on television.
Ultimately, there were some aspects of “XXX: State of the Union” that I really liked – namely the action sequences. It wasn’t the greatest action in the world, and some of it was downright silly. Some scenes even reminded me of Ice Cube’s last action flick “Torque,” which had a motorcycle zipping down Sunset Boulevard at 200 mph.
Still, the action can be fun. It’s that nasty thing called a plot that kept tripping the movie up. It really doesn’t make much sense, anyway. It’s just an excuse to blow things up. But you always have the option of giving yourself a lobotomy before seeing this. If you do that, you just might like it (or even understand it).
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