xXx: State of the Union (2005)

Someone is targeting the old unit that Agent Augustus Gibbons used to belong to under the command of George Deckert, now Secretary for Defence. Half the unit are dead, Triple X agent Cage is dead and Gibbons' underground base has been infiltrated by a highly trained team from which he barely escaped. With his gadgets expert in tow, Gibbons turns to a new Triple X agent to help him fight this threat – former comrade and now life prisoner, Darius Stone. Busting Stone out of prison, Gibbons arms him and helps him start his new mission by uncovering hidden information; as the danger increases, so does the pace and all clues lead to something very sinister indeed.

The production company credits right at the start of the film proclaim this as an "Original Films Production", a claim that I thought highly ironic since it then plunges into a pre-credit sequence that is as genre-specific as they come, a title sequence that is a clear Bond rip off and a film that delivers nothing more than the genre basics. Taking the lead from the first film, the script kills off Xander Cage with barely a mention and moves on to the new agent. Discussion of the plot is pointless cause the whole affair is nonsense with logic holes so large that you could drive a souped up car through it. Those looking to this for a story that they can get into will be sorely disappointed as the film throws its energy into noise, explosions and typically OTT action scenes. To me and many viewers this will be just annoying hollow spectacle but to the target audience this is all they require and xXx2 does do it noisily enough to satisfy them.

The action is as stupid and illogical as the plot itself but it is noisy, stupid, big and bold and is enjoyable on that level; it is a shame that it lacks any actual tension or excitement but the noise will be enough for the target audience. At times it all gets a bit much and just looks plain silly but it never really stops moving that long so the next boom or bang is only ever minutes away, preventing you turning your brain on. The attempts at character and story are the worst – the moments with the girls really slows things down without adding even titillation value, while the potentially brave political stance made by the drawing of the president is just lost and wasted. Ice Cube picks up the mantle and delivers a one-note performance where he basically sneers his way across the screen; he lacks any sort of charisma here and could have been any old actor (something I think those hoping to make a franchise hope will be the case). Jackson is just collecting the cash so his bad performance can be ignored but Dafoe is a terrible bad guy considering he has done it well in other films. Xzibit doesn't do much but will draw humour from the MTV teenage audience thanks to his "Pimp my Ride" personae being called on. Mabrey and Gayle are basically just eye candy, with breasts squeezed and lifted in every scene – they can't act and don't have any chemistry with the basic Cube. The support cast do lots of running around with guns or diving away form bangs but nobody gets close to a performance.

Overall this is a noisy genre flick, nothing more and nothing less. Those claiming how awful it is forget that there are people who don't want art films, emotional films or engaging dramas, they just want to whoop and holler as things get blowing up in fancy-looking ways. For them, and them alone, this film will do the job as it provides effects, stunts and noise. However those looking for even the most basic characters, plot, tension, excitement or development will find themselves yawning through this noisy cross between a hip-hop video and a video game.