xXx - Return of Xander Cage

Title: xXx: Return of Xander Cage

Director: D.J. Caruso

Released: 2017

Starring: Vin Diesel, Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone, Kris Wu, Ruby Rose, Tony Jaa, Nina Dobrev, Samuel L. Jackson, Toni Collette

Plot: Extreme sports hero Xander Cage (Diesel) has been living in self-imposed exile since being recruited by the government's “xXx” program, only to be brought back when a weapon known as Pandora’s Box capable of crashing satellites is stolen by Xiang (Yen).

Review: The original “xXx” released back in 2002 is something of a guilty pleasure for myself as it not only managed to combine extreme sports with James Bond style hijinks, but also freshen up the spy genre which had certainly lost its edge with “xXx” giving us a louder and flashier and generally over the top take on material much like we’d got with “True Lies”. Sadly while the series certainly looked like it had potential to spawn a number of fun adventures for the character, the tepid “xXx: State of the Union” essentially killed the franchise dead as the combination of heavy CGI and a charmless and generally loud Ice Cube make for a forgettable experience while Vin Diesel went on to growl about family a whole bunch in the “Fast and Furious” franchise

Of course the idea of Vin Diesel returning to the series was certainly welcomed by myself not only because he is one of the more underrated leading men of the action genre, but also for how he truly made the character of Xander Cage, an extreme sports caricature more of a believable creation even adding tattoos to the character which paid homage his own D&D characters. Sadly in the fifteen years have passed since his last outing and with the Riddick saga not really connecting with the audiences the way that I think he would have liked, its clear that Vin Diesel viewed this return as more of a backup option.

No doubt due to the success of the “Fast and Furious” franchise this time Xander isn’t saving the world alone as we now find him being lumbered with a team of uninspired creations which include sharpshooter Adele Wolff (Rose), stuntman / getaway driver Tennyson “The Torch” (McCann) and errr DJ Havard “Nicks” Zhou (Wu) while Nina Dobrev is on hand as the CIA weapons specialist Becky essentially replacing the Agent Shaver character from the first two films. All of these characters being introduced with freeze frame flashes as pop trivia cards appear longside them, just incase anyone was keen to know that Adele’s gamer tag is “Lady Boner”. Of course none of this flash can disguise the fact that all of these additions much like their enemy counterparts are all bland cutouts, overworked in their background details in a vain attempt to make them seem more hip than your average spy. Instead all we end up with though is a bunch of irritating caricatures than anything resembling a fully developed let alone likeable character.

The other issue we get is that every time you have any two characters together it turns into an ego contest as they constantly seem to be wanting to prove who is the most extreme, be it via a game of hang grenade hot potato or the the excruciating tattoo story scene between Xander and Serena (Padukone) as the claims they make grow ever more ridiculous including her claiming that she climbed the Millenium Eye naked. Perhaps this was to add more sex appeal to a character who spend nearly the whole film in various states of undress, but instead just left me rolling my eyes.

These scripting issues continually plague the film which doesn’t take the gap between films into account, meaning that Vin Diesel ends up coming off like the dad trying to show how hip he is to the young kids, which might have been fine if there hadn’t been that 15 year gap and as such ends up with Xander coming off frequently akward throughout even though its clear that Diesel is attempting to charm the audience through the material. These issues aside Xander is very clumsily written here, devoid of any of the charm which made him such a likeable character in the original, let alone the fact that he was able to succeed were his spy counterparts failed because he wasn’t some trained spy and relied on instinct, his skills and general Playstation training. This time round he’s too much of a spy and generally too knowledgable of the espionage world especially for someone whose supposed to have removed themselves from this world. Another issue is the lack of a decent bad guy, an issue which also hindered the previous sequel and here its pretty much the same problems again, when surely it shouldn’t have been too hard to come up with another Eurotrash villain than just leading us in one big circle which the changing face of evil here ultimately creates.

The action scenes are enjoyable enough throughout, though nothing comes close to matching what we got in the original film, especially with the use of CGI being so heavy it really becomes hard to distinguish the few moments when we do get practical effect work. Even with two fantastic martial Artists like Donnie Yen (stepping in for Jet Li) and Tony Jaa in the cast they end up feeling squandered here with Caruso shooting them so close and choppy that their abilities never really get chance to shine through, which for the established fans of their work will only prove the more frustrating. Equally squandered is Samuel L. Jackson who here bookends the film and is removed far too quickly just to establish the introduction of his replacement Jane Marks (Collette)

Sadly still not the sequel to the classic original we wanted especially when proves to be just as forgettable as the previous film.