xXx: Return of Xander Cage Review

If you have no idea what the "xXx" movie franchise is, let me get one item of business out of the way. I don't know if anyone was thinking of this, but in case you were, "xXx" refers to extreme sports in this instance. As in the X Games or X-treme sports. Skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling in the winter. Biking, skateboarding, BMX in the summer. That sort of thing. Not the XXX movie rating given to heavily pornographic films. These movies are PG-13 rated "turn off your brain" action films about extreme sports athletes recruited by the government to save the world. They are really dumb movies, but that's their goal. When you know you are a dumb movie franchise and you own it and run with it, you can be super entertaining. Think "Sharnado." A really awful movie. But an intentionally awful movie that is super entertaining because of it. I fully recognize that not everyone is on board with these types of movies. Some people absolutely hate "Sharknado" and I get it. Call it an acquired taste if you will. But I dig them. If done right. There's definitely a different set of standards to judge movies like this by and if done wrong, they can be cringe-worthy like "Zoolander 2." But in my opinion, "xXx: Return of Xander Cage" is a dumb movie done right and I had a blast with it.

As far as my history with this franchise, I did not see the first two movies in theaters back in 2002 and 2005 respectively. I watched them in summer of 2010 or 2011. My younger brother was leaving for the summer for some sort of Army thing and he requested that I hold onto his movie collection until he got back. As a part of his collection, he owned both "xXx" and "xXx: State of the Union." I watched both of them that summer. "xXx" was a unique experience for me. For a good portion of the first half of the movie, I thought the movie was really stupid with no entertainment value. I almost turned it off and moved onto something else. But either the movie started getting better or something happened to my brain cells because I started really enjoying it. By the end of the movie, I was grinning like a little two year old. I put in the "xXx: State of the Union" shortly after and hated it. Zero entertainment value. The big problem was that they killed off Vin Diesel and replaced him with Ice Cube. Wrong move. Ever since the movie was released, rumors of Vin Diesel returning for a third movie existed, but it never came to fruition. Until now. 12 years after "State of the Union" hit theaters. It was more of a six or seven year wait for me, but I am so glad this movie finally happened.

The undeniable comparison to the "xXx" franchise is "The Fast and the Furious" franchise. The original movie "The Fast and the Furious" was released in 2001, a year before "xXx." Both movies were dumb, over-the-top movies starring Vin Diesel and I had a similar reaction to both films. At first I was not bought in, but by the end, I was completely sold. I'll dive deeper into "The Fast and the Furious" franchise later this year when "The Fate of the Furious" comes out, but a quick overview is that Vin Diesel left in the second movie and the quality went way down. The third movie had no returning cast and was completely useless. In the fourth movie, everyone returned and the franchise returned to its guilty pleasure status of being a fun, dumb movie. Then something crazy happened as "Fast Five" was not dumb at all, but extremely epic and one of the best heist movies ever. "Fast and Furious 6" was straight up entertaining and "Furious 7" was not only super entertaining, but also super emotional as Paul Walker died before they finished filming. "xXx: Return of Xander Cage" doesn't hit the levels of films five through seven in "The Fast and the Furious" franchise, but I would say it's on the line of the fourth film as it successfully gets the franchise back on track.

If I'm being honest, Vin Diesel is not that great of an actor. I don't ever think he's going to be the type of guy that's ever getting an Oscar nomination for his acting skills, but the man has a lot of charm and charisma. He completely carried the first "xXx" and "The Fast and the Furious" movies on his back and when he left both franchises, it's no coincidence that both franchises went downhill. It's also no coincidence that his return to both franchises is what got both of them back on track. This type of dumb action film is his thing and he does a great job with them, even if he's not much of a stunt person. He's also perfect as the voice of Groot in "Guardians of the Galaxy" as he manages to put so much personality into a character who only has one line of dialogue. So yeah, I love Vin Diesel. I was angry when they killed his character in "State of the Union." An Ice Cube led "xXx" movie just was't the same. Ice Cube is a rapper turned actor who is a horrible actor with no charm and charisma. He looks and sounds like he's going to punch someone in the face at any given moment and I find him really annoying. Almost every Ice Cube left movie has completely turned me off. I know a lot of people love him as a rapper and actor, but he's a man I just don't get.

As far as plot goes, I'm sure you caught this by now, but Vin Diesel plays Xander Cage. And he's back. That's all you really need to know. They tried to put some sort of script together for this movie, but I honestly don't think they ever got past a first draft. They never really explain how he faked his death, we're just supposed to accept the fact that he did and has been hanging out in some exotic place for like 11 years or so. I don't really remember how they found him or why he specifically was needed for another mission, but he is. The mission involves a thing called Pandora's Box, which apparently controls satellites and is being used to crash satellites into various parts of the world, so they need to hunt down the box. The military tries to give Vin Diesel a team of soldiers to work with, but he's like, "Screw you," and dumps them off a plane, then recruits his own team of extreme sports people and they're off to save the world! In other words, we spend a lot of time focusing on Vin Diesel returning and then we set up a team like they have in "The Fast and the Furious." That's kinda cool. They're trying to make this even more like "The Fast and the Furious" and I'm totally down with that. After we do both things, crazy stuff happens. And that's essentially the whole movie.

I will admit that this took a while to get going for me. I went in with a lot of excitement. I admit that I was probably more excited than I should've been, but whatever. I enjoyed a few of the opening scenes and then spent a lot of time being fake excited before I realized I wasn't having as much fun as I wanted to be having. Then the movie tried to do too much story and wandered a bit. I started to get worried, but then I remembered the same thing happened with the first movie, so I decided to be patient. In the meantime I tried for a while to understand this overly complicated plot involving Pandora's Box, but then I was like, "Screw it" and completely turned off my brain and relaxed in my chair. Eventually the same phenomenon happened with the first movie where either I lost too many brain cells and thus started to be entertained at dumb things that happened or the movie itself may have gotten better. I don't know which one it is, but I loved the second half of this movie. It's exactly what I wanted it to be. This new team even grew on me as the movie went along. I loved Ruby Rose and Donnie Yen most, but the others were cool, too. Eventually. The plot completely changed like three times. Almost without warning. But that was whatever.

As far as a recommendation goes, this one is easy. If you loved "xXx," then you should see this movie. You'll probably love this, too. If you somehow also loved "xXx: State of the Union," you should definitely see this because it is miles better than that movie. If you think this franchise is dumb, then I don't why you would bother with this third movie. It's not going to convert you. A lot of critics have pointed out just how poorly made this movie is when it comes to all the filmmaking aspects like plot, dialogue, acting, editing, etc. And they're right. If someone calls this an awful movie that they hated, I'm not going to dispute any of their specific points. For me I was able to somehow look past all of that and have a good time, anyways. This is not on the level of the most recent three "Fast and Furious" movies. But it is on the level of the first and fourth "Fast and Furious" movies as well as the first "xXx" movie. They aren't that great. But I enjoyed them anyways. That's why they are called guilty pleasures. "xXx: Return of Xander Cage" gave me everything that I was hoping for in a "xXx" movie and I hope they continue with this franchise because I'm on board. Financially it hasn't done well in the United States, but overseas is currently saving it, so that's good news. My grade is an 8/10.