Movie Info
Movie Name: xXx: State of the Union
Studio: Revolution Studios
Genre(s): Action/Adventure
Release Date(s): April 29, 2005
MPAA Rating: PG-13
I may be getting old, but you look like the one out of place, kid…
Agent Augustus Eugene Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) and his NSA team are under attack from inside the government. Gibbons is forced to spring Darius Stone (Ice Cube)…the new xXx from prison where he was sent for disobeying the orders of the current Secretary of Defense General George Deckert (Willem Defoe). When Gibbons and Stone realize that the conspiracy is deeper than they believed, xXx must team with the agent hunting him (Scott Speedman) to stop an overthrowing of the President of the United States of America (Peter Strauss).
Directed by Lee Tamahori, xXx: State of the Union (sometimes called xXx²: The Next Level ) was the follow up to the popular xXx of 2002. The film recast the Ice Cube as the lead actor in the series, and while the first film received moderate to negative review, this film largely received negative reviews and a poor box office draw.
“xXx”, are you buying this plot?
Though he wasn’t the greatest actor, the decision to relaunch the series with Ice Cube in for Vin Diesel was an error. A short tie up piece called The Final Chapter: The Death of Xander Cage is available on the xXx DVD and features a tie up piece (with a Vin Diesel’s stuntman) which shows his pathetic death…it almost seems like a fan film and it shows how this film wasn’t very well conceived in the first place.
The story stumbles through a horrible script that just seems to go on-and-on. There is a lot of lapses in logic and though it has some intense action, it can’t help the bad story. The bad story is backed up with even worse dialogue that the struggling actors cannot pull off.
Yeah, that looks real!
Ice Cube is way out of his league. He’s not an action star…especially in a series that was based on “real” stunt work. He looks pudgy and struggling with much of the big explosive action (I particularly like the prison break). He’s back up with other stars who can act and deliver dialogue and it really makes me question some of Willem Defoe’s role decisions along with Spider-Man and Speed 2.
xXx was a very generic action movie that incorporated very real stunts (which led to the death of one of its stuntmen). Here, many of the special effects are computer enhanced rather than “real”. This loses any aspect of the original movie that was good and combined with the weak story and acting, xXx: State of the Union is an even poorer sequel.
xXx: State of the Union’s failure at the box office doomed the series for years. I had hoped that the series died with Xander Cage and that this outing by Ice Cube meant that the program could be shut down, but in the world of sequels and lazy Hollywood searching for nostalgia, xXx: State of the Union was followed by xXx: Return of Xander Cage in 2017.
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