xXx: Return of Xander Cage (Movie review)
It is the return of xXx. A return to the sequel.
Before I start this review, i want to mentioned that i am a fan of the first xXx and not as much of a fan of the sequel. Mainly because i don’t like Ice Cube and i don’t see him as an actor at all. However the second movie did nothing to redeem itself for that ill choice of casting. The third entry to the franchise is has is more like the sequel than the awesome original.
Xander Cage is back. The amazing freestyle and just generally badass character from the first movie is here. It is explained that he did not die as it was stated in the second poor excuse for a movie but in fact survived and as cool as he was before. The first action scene with him blew my mind. Skiing in the rainforest? Just another day at the office for this guy. Also the dramatic irony at the end of his journey is priceless. It turns out that he was stealing a piece of hardware to allow the locals to see the football match between Brazil and Germany. I mean i am not an analyst but i believe that Brazil’s chance of winning is 1 to 7. Everything was perfect in that scene for me. I didn’t see anything out of place or other mistakes. Well at least on my first view.
Honestly after watching that scene i thought that this will be a 10/10 movie. Well… I was wrong… The plot is so weak and non-existent it is painful to actually try to remember it. The main bad guy changes through the “story“ so much times that you only remember that Vin Diesel is the good guy. Also i only learned the names of some characters at the end credits. The whole idea of the satellite control is quite interesting but it is not even the main focus. Instead it is based around the xXx teams with very few character development. About a half of the characters are unlikable and lack charisma.
But on the other hand this kind of film does not need any of that. It does not present or tries to present itself as a serious drama or an intelligent film that you have to think to understand. On the contrary people go to see these kinds of movies in order to relax without thinking and just watch some good action. Here the new xXx delivers.
Throughout the movie Vin Diesel brings back old memories of the first xXx and it made me feel very nostalgic. Especially after understanding what is going on right now. Although the choice of music for the action scenes are nowhere near great or good it is still very fun and entertaining to watch. In terms of the music and action cohesion the trailer was superior to the movie. In my opinion it was done almost perfect in the trailer. But there are negatives to that as well. Parts of absolutely all action scenes were shown off in the trailer. Because of that i was able to predict a lot of things that happened. Maybe the last one was the sole exception.
On the topic of trailer… I understand that they wanted to show off the best parts but why? Just why? Why, did they show one of the plot twist that was meant to be only be revealed at the end if it was revealed in the trailer?
This movie has lots of “main” characters. Too much in fact. Only 3 or 4ish of them actually got any development. Donnie Yen’s portrayal of Xiang is fantastic. I have nothing bad that i could actually comment on that actor or his character. He is truly the gem of this movie. Vin Diesel. What can i say? Amazing character as well. Maybe Vin Diesel is not a good actor but he can really shine in this type of action movies. However the last main character out of the main character is the Indian girl. She has a thick accent and she is hilarious. Even the moments when there was no jokes she still made me laugh at her accent. I don’t know if it was intentional or not but i really hope it wasn’t because why would you do something like that. The reason for that is during some serious moments she did not change her speech manner and made all the dramatics scenes into comedy. On top of that her character is unrelatable and very unlikable at least to me. I don’t even remember her name or the name of the actress (i looked it up 3 times after the movie).
The other not as much supporting characters because they get a good portion of screen time don’t get development at all. As i have said before they don’t even mention their names. The “Hawk” character is so undeveloped i never forgot he existed half way through the movie. The other character is simply referred to as “CIA director”. It will be hard identifying that guy after he loses his job. It is really a shame because they got some good actors playing those roles, like the Hound from Game of Thrones.
The general quality of humor is fine and to a certain extent pleasant at best. Some jokes are so cringey that made me wonder who could genuinely laugh at them. But there are some really good punchlines as well. I found myself laughing in the theater quite often but that was mainly because of the point mentioned above. I still believe her accent wasn’t an intentional joke. In terms of references this movie is on the good level as well but nothing too memorable that i will still remember after a few weeks.
Finally let's talk about the action. The action. It is the best part of this movie and without it it is impossible to say that it was an overall good film which it is. I say good but that doesn’t mean proper good. It has some terrible moments and it has some amazing as well. But then again it is an action movie and the main focus is the action. The action delivers. Well, for the most part. There are occasional obvious “green screen” scenes but not too often. There are also an absurd amount of mistakes and some wtf moments. But then the next action scene starts and you forget them. Plus during the action scenes you don’t look and don’t think about them. I stopped counting after the first action scene and did not resume because I didn’t want to spend my time thinking about it with spectacular things happening on the screen.
You do have occasional rare moments when you start to question the logic of the film or a particular scene but that happens so little you will not notice it. Also if you actually find yourself in such a moment it is likely that you will remember that you are watching an action movie with Vin Diesel and stop looking for logic in everything.
Overall i believe that it is a good movie. It did not live up to almost any of my expectations but it managed to surprise me as well. Donnie Yen is already one reason to see this movie or to see it a second time as to experience his character again. However with weak villain or multiple changing villains the movie isn’t very strong with characters. In terms of the plot it is hard to say anything. Partly because there is not much of it anyway and that automatically reduces the number of things you can say about it. But then again this movie does not really need it. The action ultimately redeems this movie. Also you really need this type of movies where you just turn off your brain and mindlessly watch the action that is happening on the screen.
5/10