MOVIE REVIEW: xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017)

From IMDB:

Extreme athlete turned government operative Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) comes out of self-imposed exile, thought to be long dead, and is set on a collision course with deadly alpha warrior Xiang (Donnie Yen) and his team in a race to recover a sinister and seemingly unstoppable weapon known as Pandora's Box. Recruiting an all-new group of thrill-seeking cohorts, Xander finds himself enmeshed in a deadly conspiracy that points to collusion at the highest levels of world governments. 

Reviews 22 user | 19 critic

Popularity 16 ( 17)

From Rotten Tomatoes:

The third explosive chapter of the blockbuster franchise that redefined the spy thriller finds extreme athlete turned government operative Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) coming out of self-imposed exile and on a collision course with deadly alpha warrior Xiang and his team in a race to recover a sinister and seemingly unstoppable weapon known as Pandora's Box. Recruiting an all-new group of thrill-seeking cohorts, Xander finds himself enmeshed in a deadly conspiracy that points to collusion at the highest levels of world governments. Packed with the series' signature deadpan wit and bad-ass attitude, "xXx: RETURN OF XANDER CAGE" will raise the bar on extreme action with some of the most mind-blowing stunts to ever be caught on film.

Rating: PG-13 (for extended sequences of gunplay and violent action, and for sexual material and language)

Genre: Action & Adventure, Drama

Directed By: D.J. Caruso

In Theatres: Jan 20, 2017 Wide

Runtime: 110 minutes

Studio: Paramount Pictures

WANT TO SEE 93% want to see

User Ratings: 14,969

This is Gibbons. He's sort of like the more casual and hip version of Nick Fury. He does another thing in this movie that Nick Fury does too. ©Paramount Pictures.

So apparently Xander Cage wasn't killed in the second movie... 

xXx started way back in 2002 with Vin Diesel playing Xander Cage or xXx, but I can't for the life of me remember whether I actually saw that movie or not. Then the sequel showed up in 2005 titled xXx: State of the Union, this time around Vin Diesel wasn't free since he was making The Pacifier so a new xXx was found to replace him and that man was named Darius Stone played by Ice Cube. Again I can't remember actually watching it. The takeaway here is that both movies left little to no impression on me for me to even recall whether I watched either or both movies at all. Very, very forgettable films. 

So why did two movies that didn't really make huge money at the box office and impressed only a handful of critics who put it in the so-bad-that-it's-sort-of-good category get a third instalment? And not only that but also got Vin Diesel to return as the titular character? I honestly don't know but made it did get. 

Anyway, as the title suggest Xander Cage is back. He wasn't killed off as mentioned in the second movie but has instead been chumming it up with the locals somewhere in Latin America. He's also been stealing cable for them as an act of rebellion against the rich, or something like that. While Cage is doing that the man who recruited him, Augustus Gibbons played by Samuel L. Jackson is busy trying to recruit professional footballer Neymar to join the xXx program when a satellite falls out of the sky and kills them both. The satellite, of course, didn't fall out of the sky by accident. 

So this scene apparently takes place on an island somewhere in the Philipines but you'd find a hard time spotting the locals. ©Paramount Pictures.

The little incident prompts someone from the government named Jane Marke (Toni Collette) to call a meeting of pretty important individuals in the intelligence industry for a meeting. The meeting gets crashed though by Xiang (Donnie Yen), Serena Unger (Deepika Padukone) and Hawk (Michael Bisping) who kill pretty much everyone there except for Marke and the CIA Director (Al Sapienza) and proceed to steal something called the Pandora Box which apparently was the device used to pull the satellite out of it's orbit to be turned into a missile to target a man eating in a Chinese Restaurant. The trio escapes literally unscathed and are met by their fourth member Talon (Tony Jaa) whose only contribution to the nights' event is to take down a man on a motorcycle holding a gun. Not too sure why there was only one man on a motorcycle with a gun at a meeting of obviously important people. Where in the world are their security details/teams? 

So now Marke has a problem, she's been attacked by a very professional and somewhat daredevil team and she has no idea who they are. So what does she do? She looks for Cage. Now how did she know he was alive? It would make sense that Cage would be trying to lay low and avoid being noticed by people like Marke. And how come Gibbons didn't know something like this was brewing? Why didn't he get even an inkling that someone was out for him? Also wouldn't Gibbons know that Cage was alive? 

So she's a sniper but here she's decided to hang herself under a coconut tree in full view of everyone while holding a very large sniper rifle. That's a real pro. ©Paramount Pictures.

Moving on. Marke tracks down Cage and tells him she needs him and that he'll get the government's full support. She even brings along an elite team of soldiers for him to lead. Cage makes fun of them, sneakily hooks all of them up the equipment package they've brought on the plane then opens the cargo bays and drops them out of the sky. Cage then tells Marke that he's got his own people and so we soon meet Adele Wolff (Ruby Rose) a sniper and weapons specialist who likes to shoot at hunters that are trying to kill animals, Nicks (Kris Wu) a wannabe DJ and Tennyson Torch (Rory McCann) a former stunt driver who now spends his time crashing cars into things and then taking a selfie with the wreck. Once Cage has gathered his team we meet the last person on the team who's also Marke's underling and that's Becky Clearidge (Nina Dobrev). 

So after Cage meets with Ainsley (Hermione Corfield) a woman under house arrest in London who has a team of beautiful young ladies who are apparently hackers, she can't do it herself because it would violate her house arrest terms, Cage discovers where Xiang and his team are hiding out. And so begins lots of fighting and shooting, some talk about who wants or should get the Pandora Box, a few folks switching sides, a dead CIA Director and the return of someone from the dead and someone from the past. 

See that girl with the glasses? She's supposed to be the teams tech support but she's also the comic relief. She's only good at one of them, guess which? ©Paramount Pictures.

Now for the likes.

Hmm... Let's see...

• The Story? Nope. Didn't like it. Too convoluted and full of plot holes. 
• The dialogue? Nope. Didn't like that either. Stilted and juvenile. Lots of one-liners that's probably meant to make the character sound cool. You'll notice that it's quite often paired with them trying to look cool saying it. Also, Tony Jaa hardly says anything. 
• The action? Hmmm... Nope. Not that either. The stunts either looked ridiculous or didn't make sense. I mean how likely is it that in the middle of an alley there's a conveniently placed ramp for you to use in order to ram into your opponent. The fight scenes were just as bad as well especially when you consider that not only is Donnie Yen in it but Tony Jaa too. These two guys not only appear in front of the camera but they have consulted for fight scenes behind the camera too. 
• The camera work? Hmm.. wasn't impressed with that either. The only people who'll watch this movie and think that the camera work is awesome would be the same people that think the Fast and Furious movies are the best action movies ever. In fact, compared to this I'd probably agree with them. 
• The music? Hmm... I read somewhere that the makers of this movie wanted the movie to be a big part of it. There definitely is music and you do notice it because it gets a little intrusive at times but it won't make you want it like how the Guardians of the Galaxy did with Starlord's Mixtape Vol. 1.
• The only good thing I can think of about this movie is that at the very least the cast is truly diverse. 
• The other good thing is that I found Toni Collette's constant eye rolling a reminder that I wasn't the only one who found this movie a steaming pile of poo. Maybe. 

The not so likes.

Uhhh... Look up there.  I could write more but I'm bored already. 

Oh, look! It's the Hound. Actually, go watch him as The Hound instead of whomever he plays in this one. ©Paramount Pictures.

So, yeah, I didn't like this movie. It was horrible. You know how some movies are so bad that it's good? Yeah, this isn't one of them. I honestly don't understand how this movie got made. How did they all look at the script and collectively agreed to do it as it is, even when you think about how some movie scripts get written and rewritten until they get one that works you'd still have to wonder how bad the other scripts were that they decided to settle on this one. All they had to do was live up to the previous films and yet somehow... Actually, I don't know or can't tell if this one is better or worse than the first two since I don't remember either of them. 

Anyway, if you're a fan of Vin Diesel I'd suggest you give this a miss, wait for Fast & Furious 8 or maybe even Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, you may not see him in it but I can guarantee he'll be better there. If you're a fan of the fight masters Donnie Yen or Tony Jaa, well Rogue One is probably still playing somewhere and Tony Jaa's earlier films are much better. As for Kris Wu and Deepika Padukone, well this is their first big budget Hollywood film so I'm guessing they have that going for them. Samuel L. Jackson and Toni Collette, I guess they're doing it for a laugh and the cheque. 

If you value your money if you want a coherent and well-told story with exciting action and amazing fight scenes don't go watch this movie. If you don't care about any of those things and you're like 12 and think extreme sports and the X-Games are the most amazing things ever to be shown on TV then go right ahead. I'm giving this movie a 1 out of 5. 

Here, check out the trailer. 

I'D LIKE TO THANK KLIPS.MY AND UNITED INTERNATIONAL PICTURES MALAYSIA FOR THE EARLY PREMIERE PASSES! 

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