Main cast: Ice Cube (Darius Stone), Scott Speedman (Agent Kyle Christopher Steele), Peter Strauss (President James Sanford), Samuel L Jackson (Agent Augustus Gibbons), John G Connolly (Sgt Alabama “Bama” Cobb), Xzibit (Zeke), Sunny Mabrey (Charlie Mayweather), Nona Gaye (Lola Jackson), Michael Roof (Agent Toby Lee Shavers), and Willem Dafoe (General George Deckert)
Director: Lee Tamahori
Well, the people behind XXX decide to make a sequel, but Vin Diesel apparently took one look at the script and told them that he’d be busy washing his hair that weekend. Well, that’s the right choice, as while XXX: State of the Union tries to be bigger and louder and more explosive, it just manages to be loud and boring.
Well, Peen Diesel, er, Xander Cage had apparently retired as Triple X after the last outing, and he apparently died off-screen shortly after this movie starts, killed in a plot by yet another bad guy. When this movie opens, the bad guy’s men storm an NSA HQ, a bunker hidden under a farm, and gun down everyone they see. Agent Augustus Gibbons, whom you may remember as the guy that recruits Triple X agents, manages to escape. Well, he needs a new Triple X, so off he goes to pitch his usual recruitment speech at disgraced US Navy SEAL officer Darius Stone.
Stone is serving his ninth year in prison for going rogue and decking the guy who is now the US Secretary General in the face. He has heard that pitch from Gibbons before – they have a working history (it didn’t end well) – and in the past he wasn’t interested. Now, however, he may have to change his name as whoever behind the killings would be after Stone too due to his old ties with the NSA. Gibbons springs Stone out of jail, and Stone gets together with his ex-girlfriend, tough girl Lola, and his old buddy Zeke to take down what seems like a whole chain of bad guys that have infiltrated the US government all the way up the chain of command. If they fail, the bad guys will do the usual conquer the world, destroy everyone, blah blah blah.
Director Lee Tamahori’s last movie prior to this one was that horrid James Bond movie Die Another Day, and perhaps understandably, this one feels very similar to that movie in terms of feel. There are the same old convoluted plot that has more twists than sense, ludicrous fight scenes that are made to look very fake and absurd due to overuse of very obvious CGI, and a general joyless feel to the whole thing that nullifies any campy sense of fun necessary to make this movie palatable. It’s not that the script is without its share of campy moments and one-liners, it’s just that the whole thing is played out on screen in a way that just doesn’t scream fun. There is no sense of revelry in absurdity, just lots and lots of increasingly monotonous action scenes thrown my way while a loud and generic soundtrack of urban contemporary beats blasts in the background.
Ice Cube tries his best, and I appreciate that. Ice Cube, in fact, manages to portray a different kind of Triple X here, one who is more serious and ready to rumble, but despite the character’s relatively more somber demeanor, Stone is a pretty good kickass hero. The rest of the cast exist to mostly chew scenery, though, due to the way their roles are written… well, except for Scott Speedman, who is as usual so bland that I doubt he’s chewing anything here.
XXX: State of the Union checks off all the boxes in the action movie laundry list, but it ultimately just isn’t very fun to watch.
