{"id":8112,"date":"2024-11-11T23:13:36","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T04:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=8112"},"modified":"2024-11-11T23:13:36","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T04:13:36","slug":"xxx-state-of-the-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/11\/xxx-state-of-the-union\/","title":{"rendered":"XXX: State of the Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"XXX: State of the Union <\/strong>(2005)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 101 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (sequences of intense action violence, some language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Lee Tamahori\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Simon Kinberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Marco Beltrami\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: David Tattersall\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Release date: April 29, 2005 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ice Cube, Willem Dafoe, Scott Speedman, Peter Strauss, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Roof, John G. Connolly, Xzibit, Sunny Mabrey, Nona Gaye, Ramon De Ocampo.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $26M (US)\/$71M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I wasn\u2019t a fan of the first XXX movie starring Vin Diesel as the titular extreme sports enthusiast-turned-secret agent. To me, it was a failed attempt to create a James Bond-like franchise for modern audiences. However, it still made enough money for the studio to greenlight a sequel.<\/p>\n

\u00a0When Diesel dropped out due to a salary dispute, all seemed lost for XXX: State of the Union<\/strong> until somebody came up with the idea of replacing his character with a new XXX. Enter Ice Cube (Three Kings) as Darius Stone, a former Navy SEAL currently serving time in Leavenworth for disobeying orders and assaulting a superior officer. This is who NSA Agent Gibbons (Jackson, Pulp Fiction) wants to recruit to weed out a traitor within the ranks of the US government.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It goes down like this. A secret facility in Virginia is attacked and 16 agents are killed. Gibbons and his assistant, gadget maestro Shavers (the late Roof), are the only ones to escape. With Xander Cage no longer available (it\u2019s explained he was murdered in Bora Bora), Gibbons breaks Stone out of jail and brings him into the fold. Somebody on the inside orchestrated the attack and it\u2019s really no secret who if you think about it. Look at the cast list. One of the names should jump right out at you as somebody usually typecast as a villain. If you said Willem Dafoe, give yourself a gold star. He plays Secretary of Defense George Deckert, a former general who doesn\u2019t agree with President Sanford\u2019s (Strauss, Rich Man, Poor Man) foreign policy. He plans to do something about it, something very bad.<\/p>\n

After Gibbons is killed in his own home, Stone and Shavers are left to deal with the situation on their own. The NSA agent-in-charge, Steele (Speedman, Underworld), won\u2019t be any help because he believes in his government. There\u2019s no way there\u2019s a conspiracy afoot. Making matters worse for Stone, he\u2019s been framed for murder. With every law enforcement agency out to kill him, he enlists the aid of some old friends, a gang of car thieves led by Zeke (rapper Xzibit), to put a stop to Deckert\u2019s nefarious plan.<\/p>\n

\u00a0XXX: State of the Union<\/strong> is extremely absurd and a whole lot of fun. While far from perfect, it\u2019s definitely a better movie than its predecessor. The first movie left me cold; it was so perfunctory. I\u2019d be lying if I said XXX: State of the Union<\/strong> had any more substance than the first movie. It doesn\u2019t. It\u2019s silly, mindless and completely implausible. Are we really expected to believe that nobody notices the army of black-clad killers with rocket launchers outside the Capitol building while the POTUS delivers his State of the Union address? Where is the Secret Service while all this is going on? Aren\u2019t they paid to prevent such things before they start? I could ask many questions about XXX: State of the Union<\/strong>; this thing has more plot holes than Chestnut Street has pot holes after the winter snow melts. But what would be the point? Aren\u2019t most action flicks, by definition, illogical?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Ice Cube makes a pretty bad ass action hero. With that million-dollar sneer and badder-than-bad attitude, he\u2019s one dude not to be screwed with\u2026. EVER! Okay, so I don\u2019t buy him as a former soldier much less a lieutenant. With his anti-authority attitude, I don\u2019t see him making it too far in the military, but whatever. Dafoe can play the role of bad guy in his sleep. Deckert doesn\u2019t really stand out in any particular way, but he\u2019s sufficiently hateful. Jackson, with his limited screen time, does a decent job.<\/p>\n

\u00a0XXX: State of the Union<\/strong> moves at breakneck speed. The action scenes are big and loud. Some are pretty good. What\u2019s not so good is the CGI. Unfortunately, director Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day) opts for CGI rather than good old-fashioned stunt work. The climactic scene aboard the President\u2019s private bullet train looks totally fake. The storyline is predictable. It also doesn\u2019t make a lot of sense. But the movie is fun in a stupid, mindless way. It\u2019s a cool Saturday night action movie.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

XXX: State of the Union (2005)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Columbia\/Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 101 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (sequences of intense action violence, some language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Lee Tamahori\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Simon Kinberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Marco Beltrami\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: David Tattersall\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Release date: April 29, 2005 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ice Cube, Willem Dafoe, Scott Speedman, Peter Strauss, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Roof, John G. Connolly, Xzibit, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8256,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/XXX-State-of-the-Union-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8112"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8258,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8112\/revisions\/8258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}