XXX (2002)

Directed By: Rob Cohen
Written By: Rich Wilkes
Cinematography By: Dean Semler
Editor: Joel Negron, Paul Rubell, Chris Lebenzon

Cast: Vin Diesel, Eve, Asia Argento, Samuel L. Jackson, Thomas Ian Griffith, Danny Trejo, Lila Acreli, Tony Hawk, Carey Hart

Given the title this film should be able to sell itself. This is one of the worst movies I have seen. This isn’t much of a film as more of a bunch of clips of stuntmen at work. The few dialogue scenes are so over the top they are bad even for a action film. It seems like they wanted testosterone to pump through every aspect of this film that even if he was getting a beer there would be a slow motion shot some hard rock or rap music and the sense that something or someone is going to attack. This is a want to be punk rock spy film. Which in of itself makes no sense. But would be something if it was followed through upon and well made.

Sure everything looks good in this film especially the scantily clad ladies but other then that this film is stupid a hardly memorable villain who was in the model of euro-trash. Though I suspect it is because they couldn’t find a name actor to actually appear in this. In some sort of way the filmmakers seem to think this was going to be some kind of high powered energetic American James Bond movie. As far as American spies. They could have chosen a person less well known to go undercover. The way the thinking goes here this would have been more like the show I-Spy with 2 secret agents that every week go under the disguise of a tennis pro and his trainer. But no they figure recruit this celebrity and since he does all this extreme sports stuff he’s perfect without any training to help us take down a underground group of nihilistic European terrorists that we can’t get close to but somehow he has no trouble doing

The only thing that was entertaining was the gadget guy his energy in his scenes are fun but that’s about it. It’s a vin diesel movie but it seems like out of all the actors in this 2 hour movie there was only 45 minutes worth of them the rest was continuous action. Not starring them.

Samuel l. Jackson is in this I’m guessing for the money. This was the film that Vin Diesel made $20 million for from what I can see it was a pretty light workload. I believe he can act but he needs better material then this. The money on this film could have been better well spent. The funny thing is that vin Diesel wasn’t een the first choice for this film Eric Bana (BlackHawk Down, The Hulk, Chopper) Was. Not that it would have made the film better but it would have been one less balck mark on Mr. Diesel’s Resume. This film wouldn’t have been been passable in the 80’s if it had starred Arnold Schwartzenegeer, Sylvester Stallone or even Keanu reeves. The film then has eve pop up out of nowhere for pretty much a cameo though they make it seem like she is vital to the story but her character disappears

This film would go well with hitman as far as mindless stunt driven films except that hitman at least has a director who has talent behind the camera. He us had to work with the little that was available but here the director had plenty to work with too much as everything is expensive but still the film is bad and thirty minutes too long (two hours too long really) if you have the time and need something mindless to play in the background at a party go for it but in my opinion. I say skip it.


GRADE: F