XXX: Return of Xander Cage (2017) Paramount/Action-Adventure RT: 107 minutes Rated PG-13 (extended sequences of gunplay and violent action, sexual material, language) Director: D.J. Caruso Screenplay: F. Scott Frazier Music: Brian Tyler and Robert Lydecker Cinematography: Russell Carpenter Release date: January 20, 2017 (US) Cast: Vin Diesel, Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone, Kris Wu, Ruby Rose, Tony Jaa, Nina Dobrev, Rory McCann, Michael Bisping, Toni Collette, Samuel L. Jackson, Hermione Corfield, Nicky Jam, Tony Gonzalez, Al Sapienza, Ariadna Gutierrez, Neymar. Box Office: $44.9M (US)/$346.3M (World)
Rating: ***
It looks like Vin Diesel worked out those pesky salary issues seeing as he’s back on board the XXX train in XXX: Return of Xander Cage. But how can this be? It’s explained in the second movie State of the Union (starring Ice Cube) that Cage was murdered. Turns out the extreme athlete-turned-government operative faked his death. How convenient. The good news is it’s no dumber than anything else that happens in this bone-headed action flick. Better news still, this third movie is better than the first one. Hard to believe it’s been 15 years since XXX came out. The world has changed a lot, especially as it relates to technology.
Once again, Cage has millions of dollars worth of gadgets and computerized assistance at his disposal. This is where XXX: Return of Xander Cage takes a rather odd turn. The first XXX movie was obviously an attempt to create an updated version of James Bond for a generation weaned on video games and extreme sports. For me, it didn’t work. I grew up watching the old James Bond movies. I’m old enough to remember the Roger Moore movies (e.g. Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, etc.) playing in theaters. They were great fun, still are. To me, XXX was just a lot of noise and CGI-rendered nonsense. It’s a movie only a 21st century teen could love. XXX: Return of Xander Cage plays more like one of Diesel’s Fast & Furious flicks by giving him a team comprised of “the good, the bad, the extreme and the completely insane” to work with. All that’s missing are the souped-up cars and illegal street racing.
I didn’t have high hopes for XXX: Return of Xander Cage. Based on the trailer, it looked like more of the same only in 3D (optional, thank God!). Not helping matters any was D.J. Caruso, the hack director behind Eagle Eye and last fall’s The Disappointments Room. In the plus column, Diesel’s co-stars include martial artists Donnie Yen (Iron Monkey) and Tony Jaa (Ong-Bak). These two have mad fighting skills!
Nevertheless, I steeled myself for another two hours of noise, mayhem and Diesel’s macho posturing and cocky attitude. That’s exactly what I got. What I didn’t expect was that it would be so entertaining. I hate to admit it XXX: Return of Xander Cage is actually kind of fun as long as you don’t overthink it. Thankfully, the makers don’t allow any time for quiet contemplation between the chases, crashes, gunfights, hand-to-hand fights, explosions, insane stunts and non-stop club music played at top volume. If one was to actually stop and think about this movie, it would be a waste of brain power.
XXX: Return of Xander Cage opens with mentor/handler Gibbons (Jackson, Pulp Fiction) getting killed (again) while trying to recruit real life football (REAL football) star Neymar into the XXX program. He dies in most unusual and spectacular way; a satellite comes crashing down just yards from where he’s sitting in a Chinese food joint. It was no accident, somebody made it crash on purpose. This is where the movie’s McGuffin is introduced. It’s a device called “Pandora’s Box”, a portable black box that looks like an external hard drive. Basically, it allows the user to hack into any satellite orbiting the planet. But like every good McGuffin, it’s not important what it is or what it does, it doesn’t even matter if it’s plausible. It’s merely a plot device used to get the ball rolling.
A team of highly-skilled villains shows up uninvited to a late-night CIA briefing and snatches the device from the hands of new leader Marke (Collette, The Sixth Sense). Her only option is to track down the presumed-dead Cage and bring him back into the program so he can find and reclaim the device before the unknown bad guy gets a chance to use it to do something bad. Here’s what I want to know. How come Gibbons couldn’t find Cage in 15 years yet Marke locates him (in the Dominican Republic) in what seems like a day? Again, don’t overthink it.
ANYWAY, Cage insists on choosing his own team as opposed to the humorless soldiers with whom Marke tries to saddle our tattooed, chrome-domed hero. He brings in agile sniper Adele (Rose, soon to be seen in the next Resident Evil movie), stunt driver Tennyson (McCann, Game of Thrones) and young hot shot Nicks (Chinese rapper Wu) to aid him in a retrieval mission that takes them to different spots around the globe until they land in scenic Detroit for the final showdown.
As for the team of villains (if that’s indeed what they are), we have leader Xiang (Yen), Talon (Jaa), hulking Hawk (UFC fighter Bisping) and foxy Serena (Bollywood star Padukone) who becomes Cage’s main love interest. Like Bond, there’s no shortage of hot babes in Cage’s world. At one point, he goes to London seeking help from hacker babe Ainsley (Corfield, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) and ends up sleeping with six of her equally hot friends. Believe me when I say a PG-13 gangbang is no big deal. There’s also Becky (Dobrev, Vampire Diaries), an adorkable tech-support girl so obviously smitten with Cage, she reveals her safe word within minutes of meeting him.
Okay, so here’s the deal. XXX: Return of Xander Cage is fun, but extremely dumb and implausible. The plot doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s merely a binding agent for the many big action set-pieces. There’s a lot of CGI. At 49, Diesel is a little old to be zipping around on a skateboard. By compassion, the idea of a 60-ish Charles Bronson beating the hell out of scumbags half-or-more his age in the last few Death Wish movies sounds completely reasonable.
Caruso doesn’t take full advantage of Yen and Jaa’s superior fighting abilities. Their fight scenes are overedited and shot in an extreme close-up that doesn’t allow to viewer to get a good look at their moves. The acting is exactly what you’d expect from an action movie sequel nobody was really clamoring for. Collette turns in an especially bad performance as the CIA agent-in-charge. Her lines readings are wooden; her style is stiff. Diesel… well, he’s just Diesel.
For all its flaws and shortcomings, XXX: Return of Xander Cage is surprisingly enjoyable. What helps is Diesel’s character working with a team instead of going solo. They’re a fun bunch. I love Dobrev’s character. She gets off one of the movie’s best lines after an automatic weapon she drops goes off and takes out a few bad guys. The climactic fight aboard a plane that serves as CIA base of operations is also pretty cool. A surprise guest shows up at the end to help our heroes. That was neat. XXX: Return of Xander Cage will never be mistaken for high art. It’s not even a particularly good movie. It is, however, a fun movie to see on a Saturday afternoon. It’s better than usual for a movie released in January. It’s worth the price of a matinee ticket.
