xXx *** (2002, Vin Diesel, Asia Argento, Marton Csokas, Samuel L Jackson) – Classic Movie Review 694

Vin Diesel races to superstardom in the 2002 all-action thriller xXx as thrill seeker Xander Cage, who is recruited by US spy boss Agent Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L Jackson) and sent on a special mission.

That big hunk of man Vin Diesel races to superstardom in director Rob Cohen’s 2002 all-action thriller as extreme sports star and maverick mercenary Xander Cage, aka xXx, who is recruited by US spy boss Agent Augustus Eugene Gibbons (Samuel L Jackson) and sent on a special mission to cute, quaint Czech Republic locations.

There, a flash baddie called Yorga (Marton Csokas) apparently has been reading old spy film scripts and is inspired to launch a submarine kitted out with a poison gas facility. This cheeky, zesty if derivative movie gleefully borrows ideas wholesale from every Bond film you can recall: a tricksy dolly bird (Asia Argento, as Yelena), a below-ground lab, a snow, downhill racer pursuit and endless motorbike chases.

Brimming with excitingly staged, non-stop action, stunts, thrills and explosions, xXx passes enjoyably in the flash of an eye. But it’s as thin and plastic as a supermarket bag, while Diesel, Argento and even (gasp) an uneasy Jackson seem overwhelmed by it all.

The movie’s sell line was ‘A New Breed of Secret Agent’ but, as with most advertising, they exaggerated. It seems exactly like the Old Breed of Secret Agent to me.

It was a major hit, costing $70,000,000 and grossing $142,109,382 in the US and Canada, and $277,448,382 worldwide.

It runs 124 minutes but in 2005 Sony Pictures released an unrated Director’s Cut that runs about eight minutes longer and features several new story lines, some shots of brief nudity and a much longer version of the striptease for Xander.

Director Cohen and Diesel worked together on The Fast and the Furious, but Diesel bailed out of 2 Fast 2 Furious to do this one and then passed on the 2005 xXx2 sequel, which flopped without him. However, 2 Fast 2 Furious survived very nicely with Paul Walker, and of course Diesel returned to the franchise.

Diesel: ‘You have to know where stories that I asked for $30 million to do xXx2 come from. If somebody wants you to be in a film and you don’t want to do it, they won’t say you didn’t do it because the script sucked.’

Vin Diesel’s Xander Cage returned to the big screen in 2017 in the third instalment of the xXx series, titled xXx: Return of Xander Cage, even though they mentioned that Xander Cage was dead in the second xXx.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 694

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