XXX (2002)
Grade: C+
Cast: Vin Diesel, Samuel L. Jackson, Asia Argento Marton Csokas, Michael Roof
Director: Rob Cohen
Rated PG-13 because an R-rating would make less money.

“I live for this shit!” Vin Diesel yells over the extremely loud soundtrack early on in the testosterone-packed, bloated action flick “XXX”. Well, no Vin…in the past, you’ve lived for much better shit than this. 2000’s “Pitch Black” was a great sci-fi thriller, and 2001’s “The Fast and the Furious” was just as loud and dumb as “XXX” but a lot more exciting. Diesel is so determined to become a star that the shit he lives for is becoming just that: shit.

Maybe I’m wrong, though; maybe “XXX” was supposed to be the way it is. The way it is is this: “XXX” is the perfect social movie. You can give Vin Diesel (who, I suppose, is a pretty cool guy) your $8 because the trailer looked so cool, but then you end up A), Visiting with your friends, or B), Making out with your boyfriend/girlfriend. The soundtrack will get even louder in the really cool scenes, signaling you to stop talking and watch. Of course, you could watch the movie too. But be honest: are you going to spend all your time doing something like that when the movie is as uneven as this one?

So now that you’ve read those two paragraphs, you can decide if my opinion is totally valid. It may not be. I probably should pay full attention to a movie before passing judgment. But I paid full attention to at least ¾ths of it, and passing attention to the rest, so I think I have the right to write a review or not.

Another reason you may want to just pretend this review doesn’t exist is the fact that I’m not a Vin Diesel fan. I loved him in “Boiler Room”, and he exuded plenty of coolness in “Pitch Black” and “The Fast and the Furious”, but he is one cocky sonuvabeeotch. Some call it determination; here on earth, we call it arrogance. Reading an interview with him makes me want to vomit, and, hearing about this film’s sequel, preferably on his ridiculous check for “XXX 2”. I really shouldn’t have paid money to see “XXX”, because it was giving the self-satisfied jerk exactly what he wanted.

But I assure you, folks, I put those formed opinions and tried to enjoy the movie. I really did, and yet “XXX” just isn’t as entertaining as it would like to be. I enjoyed certain scenes a lot (the avalanche scene was as ridiculous as it was giddily intense; the early scenes with Diesel screwing around, and then with Diesel and Samuel L. Jackson, were a blast), but they were all offset by what I think was probably some really bad direction (which is strange, since the same guy did the aforementioned “The Fast and the Furious”). Oh, and really bad writing too—the Vin Vomit returned when he uttered the line, “Welcome to the Xander Cage zone!” (although, to be fair, there were other awful lines that I just can’t remember, so I’m not leaving them out). I did like the writing when it came up with stuff like this, though: “Dude, you have a bazooka. Stop thinking cop and start thinking Playstation. Blow shit up!”

What more can I say? On DVD, I’ll be sure to give “XXX” another try, because you have to see it twice to believe it—so many pearls before so much swine (well, the real reason is because it deserves my full attention rather than what I actually gave it). A lot of it had the “screw you” spirit of a younger, hipper, more rebellious James Bond, and I liked that, but there wasn’t enough of it. Too much time was spent doing things that didn’t seem to matter, because it wasn’t action and it didn’t advance the storyline. Near the end, I was wondering if each X in the title stood for an hour in the film’s running time. And it has a really bizarre transition from movie to end credits that I’m not sure was necessary, and I’m sure was not cool.

But don’t listen to me. I didn’t pay full attention the entire film, and I don’t love Vin Diesel. As the rest of the general moviegoing public would most likely say, what do I know?


-Alex, August 2002