BEFORE:, Well, March may have come in like two Grumpy Old Men, but it's going out with two grumpy young(er) men, and they're both playing spies - Vin Diesel and Ice Cube. Samuel L. Jackson carries over for the last time this week - this is his 7th film appearance in March, but his 9th so far this year, because he did a voice in "Turbo" in January, and had a cameo in "Betsy's Wedding" in February. So he's currently the lead contender for the star making the most appearances in 2016.
Four days to go until "Batman v. Superman"...
THE PLOT: Darius Stone, a new agent in the XXX program, is sent to Washington, DC to defuse a power struggle among national leaders.
AFTER: So apparently the first XXX is DOA, or at least MIA, so the NSA needs to recruit a new XXX (hey, it's the guy from NWA) to go to DC and stop the head of the DOD from taking out the POTUS and VP during the SOTU. OK?
Tonight's film comes with a free peek inside the heads of the marketing guys who run these Hollywood franchises - after tapping into the world of extreme sports for the first "XXX" film (and after Vin Diesel probably wanted too much money to be in the sequel), someone took a look around at the culture of 2005 and said, "Hey, you know what's big right now? Hip-hop music! Let's make the next secret agent really STREET!" Thank God they haven't made a third "XXX" film yet, because some jerk-off in 2009 would have created a hipster secret agent who fights terrorists between gigs and carries guns in his guitar case. Get me Jesse Eisenberg on the phone...
Once again, I have to give it up for the "XXX" franchise, which has proven to be more influential in the spy genre than I would have thought. With a cabinet member here plotting an attack on the White House, isn't this essentially the precursor to "White House Down"? The Secretary of Defense is 6th in line to be President, meaning he only has to kill the Pres and 5 other people to become President himself (NITPICK POINT: he'd really have to kill 6 people, not the 4 mentioned here) and though this isn't set in that Star Trek mirror universe where people get promotions through assassination, it's enough to hang a movie plot on. The speaker of the House only has to kill two people, so I'd keep an eye on that guy.
EDIT: Other people on the IMDB pointed out the similarities between this film and "Captain America: The Winter Soldier", mostly with regards to Samuel L. Jackson's character and what happens to him. No spoilers here, but I do now see the connections there as well.
Like the first "XXX" film, this is all pretty basic spy stuff - we need to break into the vault where the files are stored, we need to hack the Pentagon - until once again we reach the final action sequence, which is just plain batshit crazy. Here Darius Stone chases after the President and his kidnapper, who are on the secret high-speed Washington bullet train, in a Shelby Cobra that (shades of last night) rides on a convenient highway right next to the tracks. Then he drives the car ON to the tracks, and as the tire treads wear off from the friction, the rims just happen to fit PERFECTLY into the track's gauge, so he's essentially turned the car into a railroad train. Pretty sure that's impossible.
Somehow the car catches up with the high-speed train, and he's able to blow off the back of the train, ram it with the car, and then jump from the car to the train while they're momentarily connected, before the car breaks off and falls off the rails. Too many NITPICK POINTS in this sequence to even bother with, I'm afraid that once I start I'll never be able to stop.
I wasn't kidding about Xander Cage, they apparently had him killed off-screen between the first film and the second, although it took place in a short DVD extra where Vin Diesel's character was played by a body double. Apparently that was enough to fool the assassins, too, because they're planning on bringing Diesel back for the third film in the series, to hit theaters next year in 2017.
Also starring Ice Cube (last heard in "The Book of Life"), Willem Dafoe (last seen in "The Grand Budapest Hotel"), Scott Speedman (last seen in "The Vow"), Xzibit (last seen in "8 Mile"), Peter Strauss, Michael Roof (also carrying over from "XXX"), Sunny Mabrey (last seen in "Snakes on a Plane"), Nona Gaye, John Gleeson Connolly, with a cameo from Todd Louiso (also last seen in "Snakes on a Plane").
RATING: 3 out of 10 tanks on an aircraft carrier (bad idea...)
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