There’s a pretty good chance xXx: Return of Xander Cage screenwriter F. Scott Frazier just won a bet. Specifically, I think someone handed Frazier a list of everything they could think of that a stereotypical heterosexual dude between 18 and 25 years old could possibly want in a movie – skateboards, half-naked women, fight scenes with martial arts, fight scenes with guns, fight scenes with zero-gravity, etc. – and bet him he couldn’t fit everything on the list into a movie. But not only did Frazier fit it all into a movie, he fit it all into a move that’s less than 2 hours long. Even more surprisingly, that movie is pretty good.
In fairness, most of what’s good about the movie doesn’t come from Frazier. If anything, the people in this movie talk too much. Since there’s not a whole lot of dialogue, that’s saying something. More of the credit goes to director D.J. Caruso (Eagle Eye, I Am Number Four), and the large cast who all seem to be having a great time kicking ass and doing stunts.
The story in xXx is mostly just an excuse to showcase those stunts, but here are the basics just in case you need them: some bad guys use a videocassette-sized box to crash a satellite out of the sky. A government official named Jane Marke (Toni Collette) gets the box and has it temporarily before a super badass team of people wearing a lot of black leather steals it. This is a problem because the box, which is appropriately called “Pandora’s Box,” is super powerful and can do a ton of really bad stuff. What kind of stuff? It doesn’t matter. Just know that getting the box is a big deal.
To get the box back, Marke is going to need Xander Cage (Vin Diesel). Unfortunately, he died in a 4-minute film starring Vin Diesel’s stunt double over a decade ago…or did he? Of course he didn’t. He faked is own death and is in the Dominican Republic helping people steal cable. How did he fake his death? Don’t worry about it. What matters is that he still totally has his edge.
Diesel is joined in this movie by a global cast of all-stars, and even though that’s almost definitely a play for sweet, sweet international box office dollars, it doesn’t matter. The cast does exactly what they were brought to the movie to do. Indian actress Deepika Padukone is the badass who has chemistry with Xander. Australian Ruby Rose (Orange is the New Black) is the badass who gets the best one-liners of the film. Chinese-Canadian singer/songwriter/actor Kris Wu is the badass who’s great at parties. Scotland’s Rory McCann (Game of Thrones) is the badass who crashes things. Brazilian footballer Neymar has a brief cameo as a badass. And to be honest, I kinda want Hong Kong’s Donnie Yen (Rogue One) to be in all of the movies from now on.
My only major problems with xXx are the some of the choices Caruso and Frazier make regarding the use of women, and I use the term “use” intentionally. Particularly in a couple of the scenes in the first half of the movie, women and their bodies are so clearly being used for the entertainment and enjoyment of men that it nearly ruined the movie for me. I know, I know – it’s an action movie, it’s totally over the top across the board, and I should lighten up. But the problem with this kind of objectification, whether it’s a long slow shot of a bikini-clad body or a party full of half-naked women and fully dressed men or Xander taking literally 6 nameless women to bed at the same time, is that it seeps into our cultural subconscious and becomes normalized in a way that riding the waves on a waterski-equipped dirt bike doesn’t. The gratuity of it makes a fun movie feel kinda gross, and – this probably goes without saying – it doesn’t add anything to the story.
I’ll ding the movie for some sloppiness as well – one scene goes from nighttime to mid-day in less time than it takes to reload a gun – but I have a feeling most people going to xXx aren’t overly concerned about cinematic consistency. And that’s ok. This movie is 100 percent about entertainment – not art, not genius, just entertainment. You could make worse decisions this weekend than turning off the news, turning off your brain, and going to watch some 3D zero gravity fight scenes.
