{"id":8114,"date":"2024-11-11T23:14:48","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T04:14:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=8114"},"modified":"2024-11-11T23:14:48","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T04:14:48","slug":"xxx-return-of-xander-cage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/11\/xxx-return-of-xander-cage\/","title":{"rendered":"XXX: Return of Xander Cage"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"XXX: Return of Xander Cage <\/strong>(2017)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paramount\/Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 107 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (extended sequences of gunplay and violent action, sexual material, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: D.J. Caruso\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: F. Scott Frazier\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Brian Tyler and Robert Lydecker\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Russell Carpenter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 20, 2017 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $44.9M (US)\/$346.3M (World)<\/p>\n

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

\u00a0It looks like Vin Diesel worked out those pesky salary issues seeing as he\u2019s back on board the XXX train in XXX: Return of Xander Cage<\/strong>. But how can this be? It\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s been 15 years since XXX came out. The world has changed a lot, especially as it relates to technology.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Once again, Cage has millions of dollars worth of gadgets and computerized assistance at his disposal. This is where XXX: Return of Xander Cage<\/strong> 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\u2019t work. I grew up watching the old James Bond movies. I\u2019m 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\u2019s a movie only a 21st<\/sup> century teen could love. XXX: Return of Xander Cage <\/strong>plays more like one of Diesel\u2019s Fast & Furious flicks by giving him a team comprised of \u201cthe good, the bad, the extreme and the completely insane\u201d to work with. All that\u2019s missing are the souped-up cars and illegal street racing.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I didn\u2019t have high hopes for XXX: Return of Xander Cage<\/strong>. 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\u2019s The Disappointments Room. In the plus column, Diesel\u2019s co-stars include martial artists Donnie Yen (Iron Monkey) and Tony Jaa (Ong-Bak). These two have mad fighting skills!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Nevertheless, I steeled myself for another two hours of noise, mayhem and Diesel\u2019s macho posturing and cocky attitude. That\u2019s exactly what I got. What I didn\u2019t expect was that it would be so entertaining. I hate to admit it XXX: Return of Xander Cage<\/strong> is actually kind of fun as long as you don\u2019t overthink it. Thankfully, the makers don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0XXX: Return of Xander Cage<\/strong> 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\u2019s sitting in a Chinese food joint. It was no accident, somebody made it crash on purpose. This is where the movie\u2019s McGuffin is introduced. It\u2019s a device called \u201cPandora\u2019s Box\u201d, 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\u2019s not important what it is or what it does, it doesn\u2019t even matter if it\u2019s plausible. It\u2019s merely a plot device used to get the ball rolling.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A 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\u2019s what I want to know. How come Gibbons couldn\u2019t find Cage in 15 years yet Marke locates him (in the Dominican Republic) in what seems like a day? Again, don\u2019t overthink it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0ANYWAY, 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As for the team of villains (if that\u2019s 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\u2019s main love interest. Like Bond, there\u2019s no shortage of hot babes in Cage\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Okay, so here\u2019s the deal. XXX: Return of Xander Cage<\/strong> is fun, but extremely dumb and implausible. The plot doesn\u2019t make a lot of sense. It\u2019s merely a binding agent for the many big action set-pieces. There\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Caruso doesn\u2019t take full advantage of Yen and Jaa\u2019s superior fighting abilities. Their fight scenes are overedited and shot in an extreme close-up that doesn\u2019t allow to viewer to get a good look at their moves. The acting is exactly what you\u2019d 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\u2026 well, he\u2019s just Diesel.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For all its flaws and shortcomings, XXX: Return of Xander Cage<\/strong> is surprisingly enjoyable. What helps is Diesel\u2019s character working with a team instead of going solo. They\u2019re a fun bunch. I love Dobrev\u2019s character. She gets off one of the movie\u2019s 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<\/strong> will never be mistaken for high art. It\u2019s not even a particularly good movie. It is, however, a fun movie to see on a Saturday afternoon. It\u2019s better than usual for a movie released in January. It\u2019s worth the price of a matinee ticket.\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

XXX: Return of Xander Cage (2017)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Paramount\/Action-Adventure\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 107 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (extended sequences of gunplay and violent action, sexual material, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: D.J. Caruso\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: F. Scott Frazier\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Brian Tyler and Robert Lydecker\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Russell Carpenter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 20, 2017 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Vin Diesel, Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone, Kris Wu, Ruby Rose, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8260,"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-8114","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-Return-of-Xander-Cage-P.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\/8114","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=8114"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8262,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8114\/revisions\/8262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}