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| xXx: State of the Union |
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  (6/10)
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Runtime: 94 |
| Public Rating: 6.41 (46 votes) |
Director: Lee Tamahori |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Action/Adventure |
Year: 2005 |
| Writer(s): Simon Kinberg, Rich Wilkes (characters) |
| Distributor: Columbia Pictures |
| Reviewed by: Mel Valentin |
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The box office success of 2002's xXx, an action/adventure "popcorn" flick that crossed (and modernized) James Bond with "extreme sports," made a sequel inevitable. xXx, however, owed its box office success to a marketable "high-concept" premise, a costly, pre-release marketing campaign targeted at a younger, male demographic, and Vin Diesel (at the time, a much-hyped actor) in the lead role. For the sequel, the film’s producers kept the title, added a subtitle to distinguish the sequel from the original, and replaced Diesel (and his character, Xander Cage) with a new "xXx" and actor, an ex-Navy Seal turned military convict (Ice Cube). The producers decided to gamble on an African-American actor known more for lighter, comedic roles, Ice Cube, to step into the lead role and the xXx franchise. Ice Cube, however, isn't known for action-hero bona fides. They also gambled that audiences would flock to a convoluted, credibility-stretching political conspiracy storyline will have minimal appeal for most audiences.
Borrowing plot elements from Three Days of the Condor, a mid-70s political conspiracy thriller, xXx: State of the Union opens with a spectacular, daylight raid on an underground government facility operated by the National Security Agency (NSA). Only two men survive: NSA Agent August Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson, a holdover from the first film) and Toby Lee Shavers (Michael Roof, another xXx returnee), a weapons and electronics expert. Luckily, xXx's souped-up ’67 GTO is conveniently on hand when Gibbons and Shavers make their escape. Rather than trust his superiors NSA or the U.S. government (he suspects a high-level political conspiracy), Gibbons decides to obtain outside help. Enter Darius Stone (Ice Cube), the aforementioned ex-Navy Seal/military convict with a grudge. Gibbons and Stone, of course, have a backstory: Gibbons was Stone's immediate superior during the events that led to Stone's incarceration. In Kosovo, Stone disobeyed orders and struck a general. Despite his deep-seated resentment, Stone agrees to help. Cue pounding, overloud music score, and the second action set piece, an escape from a maximum-security military prison.
In the outside world, Stone asks for and gets “what any man on his first day out would want” (a modestly entertaining, if tired, joke). After some random squabbling between Gibbons and Stone, they head go to the safest area in Washington, D.C. (the hood, of course). There, Stone meets up with an old crony, Zeke (Xzibit, another rapper-turned-actor, added presumably for street cred). Zeke now runs a lucrative chop shop. Stone, however, is actually interested in reconnecting with an ex-girlfriend, Lola Jackson (Nona Gaye). Lola conveniently runs a high-end car dealership (in one of the many indications that we’re inside an adolescent male’s fantasy world, Lola knows her way inside and outside of cars, is strikingly beautiful, and, despite her professional clientele, dresses in clothes suited to a professional dominatrix). Sadly, Gibbons and Stone trade in the ’67 GTO for an oversized, black sports utility vehicle, a vehicle more suitable for a monster truck rally than for moving anonymously through a dense metropolitan area.
Once, predictably, Samuel L. Jackson's character is relegated to an off screen role, xXx: State of the Union becomes Ice Cube's show. The plot leads to Charlie (Sunny Mabrey), a young, blonde senator’s aide (she’s also the senator’s daughter) and, in a risible plot turn, to the Secretary of Defense, Richard Deckert (Willem Dafoe, sleepwalking through a paycheck role). Deckert, it turns out, was the general in charge of the Kosovo operation (and, not coincidentally, Stone’s former nemesis). He’s younger, fitter than his real-world analogue in the Bush administration, Donald Rumsfeld. His politics, however, are only a slightly exaggerated version of Rumsfeld’s. Deckert supports the U.S. military unilaterally extending America's hegemony far and wide (with a military budget to match) and isn’t above personally challenging the dovish, liberal internationalist president, James Sanford (Peter Strauss) on the course of foreign policy.
But even as xXx: State of the Union sets up a potentially interesting, if completely fictional, conflict between the president and his secretary of defense, political conflict and conspirators plotting a takeover of the executive branch give way to set pieces employing massive amounts of firepower, slow-motion explosions and PG-13 (i.e., bloodless) violence with a high body count. If the liberal internationalist view is ultimately vindicated, it's only as an afterthought, as the lead character chooses to uphold the constitutional democracy over a political, extra-judicial coup aided by the military (presumably, he’d do the same if the roles or political positions were reversed).
The director, Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors, Die Another Day), working with a $100 million dollar budget, makes sure that politics is used primarily as background for the connecting scenes that mark time before the next big set piece. To his credit, Tamahori emphasizes action over dialogue, shooting the brief, exposition-heavy scenes with urgency (i.e., moving cameras, quick cuts). Of course, given that we're in sub-James Bond territory here, character development or psychological realism are in short supply. Sadly, Tamahori loses his grip with the last set piece, the mano-a-mano between Stone and Deckert aboard a speeding bullet train (the scene relies on cheap-looking, obvious CGI).
Once order has been restored, Gibbons and Shavers discuss plans for the next xXx secret agent, someone meaner, tougher, etc. than the first two incarnations, Cage and Stone. Obviously, the producers have high hopes to turn xXx: State of the Union into a successful franchise with multiple sequels (unlikely). Here’s a better idea: dispense with the idea of a new actor in the lead role, and simply focus the entire film on Samuel L. Jackson’s character. As an actor, Jackson has more than enough talent and charisma to carry the next xXx sequel, even as he gracefully moves into his mid fifties.
© Mel Valentin, 3rd May, 2005
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