xXx: Return of Xander Cage

Just as Vin Diesel bailed out of the first The Fast and the Furious Sequel, he did the same for the sequel to xXx. However after some years Diesel is back as extreme sports star turned spy Xander Cage in this daft but slightly entertaining film which has an incomprehensible plot, a smug star and even some dodgy CGI here and there. The plot is some bad guys want the Pandora Box which can control spy satellites and it is Cage and his team's mission to retrieve it. However we just know everyone around is just treacherous so they should all watch their backs.

I must confess that I did have higher hopes for this movie. I’m not sure what the script writers was up to when writing it but they really seem to have a very low opinion of the audience’s intelligence. Either that or it was written for a very young audience. There were parts of the movie that was quite fun to watch but on the whole it was pretty much a mess. It is a shame because it had quite a bit of promise. The core of the plot was not too bad although I really wish that Hollywood writers would stay away from plots involving computer gadgetry. Their knowledge in that area simply stinks. Thus the gadget that the entire movie was spun around was simply stupid. Unfortunately another core plot element was the crooked CIA (or whatever department it was supposed to be) boss that of course had to do some senseless backstabbing just to prolong the movie. Tiresome, overused and boring. I know, I know with fucktards like Comey I guess one could say that it would not be too far from the truth but it is still tiresome, overused and boring. Since I am on a rant anyway let’s go on to the various stunts and special effects. It is a long time since I watched a movie where the stunts were so obviously and totally overdone and unrealistic. I mean, they were unrealistic to the point where I started to wander if it was a slapstick comedy I was watching. All of this really dragged down the movie … a lot! On the good side. I did like many of the wacky characters. It is a shame that many of their wacky moments were less of a comic relief due to the above mentioned silliness but instead felt like the more serious moments in the movie. Vin Diesel, well I watched this movie because I am a Vin Diesel fan so of course I liked him. He is his usual badass and kick ass self. He is also surrounded by a bunch of badass (and wacky as I mentioned before) characters. I quite liked the ensemble. The guy who seems to collect crashes is rather silly but fun in a strange way. I did like the gun girl a lot. However, apart from quite a few fun and/or cool scenes the movie as a whole did not cut it. In my opinion it was ruined by a substandard script devoid of any form of intelligence. I would go as far as to say that the writers were incompetent pure and simple. I was almost giving it three stars because there was many parts I liked but in the end … no, there is no way I could justify more than two stars for this mess. Really a shame. I would have liked to see more xXx movies but after this one I’m not sure anyone will bet money on that.

**A new franchise is on making!** I was very happy when I heard about a sequel is on the development of Vin Diesel's one of the career early films. I was a teenager, and I remember celebrating it in the theatre with my friends. But, like the T2, it was too late for a sequel. Most of other franchises are going for spin-offs in the similar case. Anyway, it was good to see the original character back in the action. Although not liked changing the title logo. The original is evergreen. Well, the story continued as the same gap between the first and this film. I thought the original concept was like solo action hero kind, but in here, it became a multi-starrer. Like most of the similar themed action film series, it tried to add variety of characters, including clichés like computer hackers and a boss to handle those rogue guys. But there were too many Triple Xes. The story was okay. It only wanted to make a comeback, like a re- introduction of everything. I liked the diversity in the film characters. The casting was from around the world, picking the best team like Donnie Yen from HK, Tony Jaa from Thailand. But I did not understand why Donnie was speaking in Mandarin, instead of Cantonese. From all I did not like Deepika. Yes, she's the real Indian beauty, but not a good actor, especially for actions, she's unsuitable. I would have preferred Priyanka in here. They two should have switched the films between this and 'Baywatch'. Jaa, I did think he had in him his witty character display. He was a completely different person in this. The rest of the guys were too not bad at all, particularly that stunt guy was awesome. When it comes to the action sequences, not some, many were totally impossible. Surely not the really performed stunts they were. Simply a special effects, and it was too much to take on. Because they were not realistically appealing to accept. Those include, non-snow mountain skiing, ocean wave bike surfing, you add it. The good news is, it was okay for watching once, but I'm anticipating the next part to be a game changer in the franchise. _5/10_