Movie Review: xXx: State of the Union

Based on my experience with the first xXx movie (which, thanks to its title is difficult to research on the internet [1]), I went into this one with low expectations. Vin Diesel, who generally isn't known for his ethos as an actor, plays a thrill-seeking criminal who is recruited by the NSA. That's the MacGuffin. In reality the movie is just an excuse for Vin Diesel to pretend he's awesome. In the sequel Vin Diesel is replaced (because he's not extreme enough) by Ice Cube. Consequently, this movie was little more than a 2-hour-long rap music video.

My verdict: I cannot recommend that you watch this movie or the original. The acting was terrible. It was pretty easy to tell that Ice Cube was pulling his punches during the fight scenes. Even clever editing couldn't disguise it. A lot of the action scenes were ludicrous and obviously CG. The rest were just ludicrous. The plot was nonsensical. For example, at one point it is conceded that the villains in this movie have tech that is "10 generations ahead of what the NSA has". But if they're so advanced, why haven't they won already? I'm surprised they were able to get Samuel L. Jackson and Willem Dafoe involved in this movie—they must not have read the script.

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Notes:

[1] I almost didn't dare search for an image to include with this review for that very reason. As it is, I searched for images related to "extreme sports" and "explosions", not anything connected to the title.

Image attributions:

Tanker Explosion is by Adam Howarth, available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/puppydogbites/3260650860/.