BEFORE: History just keeps repeating itself - though I was a latecomer to the "XXX" franchise, I watched them a little over two years ago. And back then I was eagerly anticipating "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice", and now I'm eagerly anticipating "Avengers: Infinity War".
But I've got to come clean, earlier tonight I went out to the movies and saw the new "Avengers" film, though I'm not going to post the review just yet, I'll get to it in about 10 days. Huh? What gives? I'm all about seeing films in these linked chains, and as it turns out, "Avengers: Infinity War" could fit RIGHT HERE in the chain. Well, to be honest, that film has such a big cast, it would fit just about anywhere.
Now, I could say that it's still early in the release of that film, though it's been out for two weeks and doing massive box office I believe that not everyone's had a chance to see it yet, and I don't want to post any spoilers. I went in cold (well, as cold as possible) and I want to afford everyone else that same opportunity. Honestly, I was very anxious because I felt that someone, either in the comic-book store or at the theater, would blurt out something that would ruin the film for me. But thankfully, that didn't happen. (And if you want to read my review and you haven't seen "Infinity War" just yet, you'll have 10 days to do so.)
No, the truth is that I need to plug a hole in the line-up, and I sort of built my chain on the fact that the "Avengers" film shares two actors with the upcoming "Solo" film, and I went from there. (It turns out that's not true, the two May blockbusters only share ONE actor, but the die is cast.) Either way, I'm committed to that schedule now, I don't want to have to rebuild May and June from the ground up, when there's a path that gets me all the way to July 4, and probably beyond.
So, Samuel L. Jackson carries over from "The Legend of Tarzan", and I'll have room for two more films with him before I get to topics relevant to Mothers Day.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "XXX" and "XXX: State of the Union" (Movies #2,290 + 2,291)
THE PLOT: Xander Cage, left for dead after an incident, secretly returns to action for a new, tough assignment with a new handler.
AFTER: There's just no way a film like this can stand up next to the new "Avengers" film, so I'm forced to regard it as a disappointing appetizer that precedes a much-anticipated main dish. Sorry, but those are the breaks when you watch films in close proximity to each other, like for me this meant three films in a 24-hour period, and that just might be too much.
The macguffin here is something called Pandora's Box, which is horribly named because it has nothing to do with the object found in mythology, which contained all the ills and evils of the world, while the device here only allows someone to crash a satellite out of orbit, and somehow get it to land on a specific spot with near-pinpoint accuracy. After the apparent death of the man who organized the original "XXX" program, the top brass at the CIA realize that the only agent who can get this device back is the original candidate from the program, Xander Cage, who appeared to die in the first film.
Only he didn't die, did he? This certifies him as a comic-book character, right? Because they NEVER die, something to keep in mind over the next few months - there's ALWAYS a way to bring a character back from the dead. Either they never died (only appeared to) in the first place, or the writers have some other device to bring them back, like time-travel or a wish-fulfillment system. And when THAT fails, there's the old "He's the son/brother/cousin/clone of the original, only he goes by the same name, so that won't be as confusing for everyone else." Hey, it worked for the new Nick Fury in the comic books, as long as we're talking about Samuel L. Jackson.
So here it takes an "extreme sports" agent to catch a bunch of "extreme sports" agents, and who better than the secret agent who thought it would be a great idea to have the NAME OF HIS SECRET SPY AGENCY tattooed on the BACK OF HIS NECK, where EVERYONE can see it, so it's NOT REALLY SECRET ANY MORE? Thus rendering all future under-cover work impractical, unless he confines his secret agent activities to Siberia or Antarctica, where he must wear a full parka with furry hood. But I digress.
Shocker, it turns out that the other "extreme sports" agents were once also part of the "XXX" program, so the enemies here eventually turn into comrades, or at least people with a common enemy, in a special "OOPS! All XXX Agents" version of this brand. But this comes only after a number of extreme sports-based confrontations, so it's all good. People jump out of airplanes, people smash through windows, people shoot at their enemies while doing martial arts stuff, but does it really all add up to anything coherent? Nah, not so much.
The most annoying character is the tech girl with the glasses, who sexually throws herself at the meat headiest guy in the room, single-handedly setting feminism back about 30 years. OK, so she's ovulating or something, but that's no reason to not act like a professional. She similarly seems incredibly stupid when it comes time to fire a weapon, or explain anything, or just basically walk across a room. And HOW did she come to be regarded as an expert in her field, again?
Or maybe the worst character is the DJ, because these days you can't do secret agent stuff unless you've got your own DJ following you around, it turns out, laying down some sick beats while the other team members crash cars and run across the roofs of moving trucks and skydive. Give me a break. Thank God Agent XXX didn't pick the military experts for his team, and instead went with the hot female sniper and the douchey hipster DJ. (Trying to be sarcastic here - how'm I doing?
Also starring Vin Diesel (last seen in "Boiler Room"), Donnie Yen (last seen in "Rogue One"), Toni Collette (last seen in "Like Minds"), Deepika Padukone, Kris Wu, Ruby Rose, Tony Jaa, Nina Dobrev (last seen in "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"), Nicky Jam, Rory McCann (last seen in "Alexander"), Al Sapienza (last seen in "Frankie and Johnny"), Michael Bisping, Ariadna Gutierrez, Hermione Corfield, Tony Gonzalez, Ice Cube (last seen in "XXX: State of the Union"), Shawn Roberts, Daniel Kash, Neymar Jr., Andrey Ivchenko.
RATING: 3 out of 10 motorcycle-skis (yes, it's a thing)
No comments:
Post a Comment