Posted: 04/30/2005

XXX: State of the Union

(2005)

by Clint Fletcher

Praise Lucifer! Finally a movie so fucking awful that it is worthy of my upmost and sincere bashing! Tis funny how things work out. After two months of “not too shabby” films, the one movie I was actually looking forward to turned out to be a flaming piece of deep brain horseshit. So let’s get to it.

XXX: State Of The Union should be banned from theaters all across the world.

Now don’t get me wrong, just because I got excited at one point doesn’t mean I thought this sequel was a good idea. For starters, the first XXX pretty much sucked. It had its moments of decent action, but overall it had a strong opening due to its genre but then quickly died off with negative word of mouth. But before it tanked, it took over $100 million down with it. Now of course since everything is based on money (instead of the public’s opinion), Revolution thought it’d be a great idea to make another installment! Despite a director, a screenwriter and a star (these people all left for a reason, retards), producer Neal Moritz green-lit a XXX2. Now when I heard Ice Cube was involved, that pretty much buried the hatchet for me. For more on this, visit my previous Rant on rappers-turned-actors. But then I captured a glimmer of hope in the form of screenwriter Simon Kinberg.

Now, everyone here at Film Monthly knows of my ignorance toward Hollywood for letting the popular action genre go extinct. There are only a small handful of action flicks coming out this year, and guess what- this Kinberg dude is writing them all. Fantastic Four, Mr. And Mrs. Smith, X-Men 3, you name it- this guy’s name is all over it. So I read an interview with him about XXX2 (which he also wrote) and he sounded very sincere and insightful. He said that the second XXX was far from what the first one was and said that the final product was truly entertaining. Then I sat through the first ten minutes and discovered the truth…

Ice Cube again continues to act or “maintain his mad face” as I like to call it, blurting out the most cheesy lines in movie history. Apparently Diesel’s character (Xander Cage from the original) is killed within the first 5 minutes, and we only know this by a wretchedly-delivered line from Samuel L. Jackson himself- “The old XXX is dead. You’re the new one.” In the opening sequence, Jackson’s secret lair gets raided by a team of terrorists. He narrowly escapes through a super-charged escape pod along with that fucking annoying tech geek from the first film. From then on, Jackson’s Agent Gibbons must go “off the grid” and bust out Ice Cube from prison to become the new XXX and take on the baddies. At the same time, other members of the agency (good guys) are trying to get in contact with him. So let me get this straight: instead of Gibbons just calling up some friends for help, he decides to bust a foul-mouthed brother out of prison instead so that he could take on an army by himself? I guess there would be no movie then wouldn’t there? I would’ve gone with the latter.

Numerous plot holes aside, XXX2 not only suffers from sheer boredom and terrible acting (what up, Xzibit!), but the one thing that could of salvaged it- action sequences- were just downright absurd, with Cube flying through the air like Superman blowing everything up in sight. Other sequences include a tank and a speed boat completely jumping a bridge the size of the Golden Gate. If the objective was to make a live action video game, then the director succeeded with bonus points. Who the hell picked the director of Die Another Day anyway? Isn’t that an equally as shitty action movie? I have to be honest, folks, I missed the ending because I fell asleep. Now normally a big explosion would wake me up, but Cube’s voice puts me to sleep so the movie was pretty much a big contradiction. Also I must add to the fact that I was snoring rather loudly and gave some much-needed entertainment to the rest of the crowd (all 2 of them). Afterwards I followed a rather large (and eventually sold out) crowd into The Interpreter which reminded me of what a real movie was like.

If it weren’t for my lucky break in seeing a second and much better flick, I might’ve jumped out a five story window with a bomb strapped to my chest, detonated it in mid-air and allowed my body parts to fall into a large can of battery acid, leaving the homeless some scraps to snack on. You may say to yourself “wow Fletch, that’s extreme.” But now I want you all to imagine what I just said and take into account the absurdity it gives off. Now multiply that by a hundred and you get an action sequence from State of the Union. Rated D- for dogshit.

Clint Fletcher is a writer, critic, filmmaker and action film fan from Chicago.

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