← Back to Reviews
in
"Sometimes your shallowness is so thorough, it's almost like depth." - Daria Morgendorffer
Humanity's capacity for resilience and reinvention has yielded results both positive and negative across the years (with a tendency towards the latter in recent memory). xXx: Return of Xander Cage can easily be interpreted as a negative example as it feeds into modern Hollywood's business-minded approach to the creative process that will gladly milk any available property for as much financial reward as possible, no matter how outwardly unlikely the prospect may seem. Prior to this, the xXx "franchise" (such as it was) consisted of only two movies. The first was an instantly-dated attempt to inject a juvenile passion for extreme sports into a Bond-like spy adventure, whereas the second came across as an empty coattail-riding rehash due to its brand-new hero and general lack of distinguishing features. It is all but certain that the existence of this new sequel can be credited directly to the extremely lucrative reinvention of xXx star Vin Diesel's other major action franchise, the car-centric Fast and the Furious series. The logic is relatively sound - if a moderately successful action series could eventually turn out a billion-dollar blockbuster with just the right degree of creativity and persistence, then maybe the prospect of making a much-belated sequel in a franchise where Diesel's main character supposedly died after one movie wasn't such an absurd one after all? This is Hollywood, after all. Stranger things have happened.
Plot's obviously not a major concern here as Return shamelessly bounds between riffing on established action tropes and borrowing heavily from the Fast series (with the most obvious instance being the "team of evil counterparts" premise of F&F6). There's a MacGuffin. Bad guys steal it. Good guys want it back. Enter Diesel as the eponymous rogue who is plucked out of his anarchic yet altruistic life off the grid by an NSA handler (Toni Collette) because he's the obvious match for the villainous gang of daredevils who took the MacGuffin (in this instance a mysterious black box of immense danger). In broad strokes, it's all familiar stuff to anyone who is well-versed in action cinema, especially movies involving spies and men-on-a-mission. If anything, it is that familiarity that will help one to enjoy this movie as it offers amusing twists on well-worn tropes with barely a hint of ironic detachment in sight. As with the Fast series, the hokey sincerity is the secret weapon that covers for any narrative weakness. The maturity can be detected in the ways that Cage has changed over the years. xXx started with him trashing a sports car that belonged to a videogame-hating politician; Return re-introduces him as he brings free cable to the poor of Brazil. The shift from empty rebellion to Robin Hood exploits demonstrates that the movie knows what it needs to succeed: a heart.
The heart definitely shines through when it comes to the rest of the characters and how they interact. Cage is the kind of character who would be very easy to hate in the wrong hands (and kind of was easy to hate in the original), but Diesel knows how to infuse him with the right mix of swaggering goofiness and emotional honesty that allows him to mug his way through many different types of scene. He's certainly given a fair few foils to play off against, whether it's Collette's world-weary handler or any of the allies or rivals whose outlandishness matches his own. The quality of individual performers varies quite a bit, though this depends on what material they're given more so than their strengths and weaknesses as actors. The obvious weak link for me would be Ruby Rose as a wise-cracking sniper; having her make constant quips would be okay if they didn't obviously suffer from an emphasis on quantity over quality and seem unsuited to Rose's generally laconic demeanour. That rapid-fire joke delivery is better-suited to the more broadly comical character of Nina Dobrev's adorkable quartermaster. Performers like Kris Wu and Michael Bisping are rather limited but are arguably saved by the movie not giving them too much to do. Still, there are a few people here who can rival Diesel in terms of charisma and physicality. Donnie Yen is an obvious stand-out as a coolly efficient criminal mastermind, though Deepika Padukone ends up being quite the surprise as his more righteous partner-in-crime. Rory McCann rounds out the cast very nicely as a charmingly gormless getaway driver who provides the greatest example of how having an embarrassing amount of heart takes clear precedence over vacuous coolness.
If there is a genuine problem that I have with Return, it's to do with the technical side of things. I'm not necessarily speaking about the special effects - the movie's blatant invocations of digital artifice are thankfully of the endearing kind. No, my real concern has to do with that most dreaded of modern action staples - the shakycam. Considering the rather stacked cast of action performers, I'm disappointed that Caruso and co. lean way too hard on the easy tension provided by disorienting camerawork and choppy editing. This becomes even more pronounced in visually drab settings such as a torch-lit nightclub or a concrete overpass. It's interesting to note that the most severe instances of this journeyman approach happen within the middle part of the film. It's as if the creators know that they have to spin the wheels in order to avoid undercutting the climax in any way - or maybe they just think that they're able to coast after the heady mix of sequences within the first act. I suppose I can understand the logic at work here - you don't want to risk putting the best action sequence in the middle of the movie. The problem is that this tiresome technique serves as a reminder that Return, for all the wildly entertaining ways in which it plays fast and loose with the action genre, still has its limits. Considering what kind of movie Return wants to be, the idea that it has limits at all is certainly a disappointing one.
Of course, even the scrappy action of the middle third or so isn't enough to sink Return. While it hits some notable lows, its highs are good enough to make up for it. There are a few solid set-pieces in here that manage to overcome the prevailing technical issues or even make them work. A good example is the scene that introduces Yen and his crew where the rapid-fire approach works well at selling their ruthless efficiency at pulling a heist, to say nothing of the ways in which each of these characters get to play around with action-movie staples such as bar brawls, stakeouts, or chases across land, sea, and air. I do have to give some credit to the appropriately ambitious finale that intersperses the movie's most implausible action sequence (which is saying something considering what comes before) with its most grounded, yet the two manage to find a balance thanks to the work that has gone into establishing all the important factors, even if that does extend to honouring some outwardly hoary clichés. Rendering your hero as an unstoppable force of nature is always a tricky prospect when it comes to setting up dramatically satisfying narratives - even by the disbelief-suspending demands of light-hearted action movies. To this end, the ways in which the other principal characters and their respective arcs and stakes are developed (or not developed, as the case may be) prove surprisingly remarkable. Their interplay doesn't just serve as amusing window dressing for the action but actively informs the development of the action itself without slowing things down - I was honestly surprised at times when I checked my watch and realised that more time had passed than I had thought. In the case of a movie like this, that's got to be a plus.
I'm hesitant to refer to xXx: Return of Xander Cage as "dumb fun" even though that is arguably the ideal way to describe it. Much like the recent Fast movies, the reluctance is mainly to do with how it establishes some actual core standards to back up its superficial adrenaline-junkie inanity, which seems simple enough but isn't as easy to do as you'd think. I have quite a few gripes with the state of modern action cinema; while Return does fall prey to a couple of the more noteworthy technical issues, it compensates with its strangely competent textual element. I've been getting burned out on action movies that favour cleverness over substance, so Return's simple yet earnest approach to its inherently silly set-up ends up feeling refreshing as a result. The plot is a simplistic genre pastiche but still manages to take on greater significance thanks to its diverse cast of characters who have their standout moments but are still greater than the sum of their fairly wacky parts. I still feel like there's some seriously untapped potential here that may yet be explored in a follow-up - it definitely needs someone on the team whose ability to capture action favours aesthetically amusing artifice over dull semi-professionalism that renders far too much of this movie a chore to watch, to say nothing of creators who can do something worthwhile with these kooky characters. Still, I'm not going to complain too much and act like this movie didn't prove an entertaining little breeze. If all of Hollywood's attempts to revive any old piece of fiction for easy profit managed to at least reach this one's level, that would be X-cellent.
"Sometimes your shallowness is so thorough, it's almost like depth." - Daria Morgendorffer
Humanity's capacity for resilience and reinvention has yielded results both positive and negative across the years (with a tendency towards the latter in recent memory). xXx: Return of Xander Cage can easily be interpreted as a negative example as it feeds into modern Hollywood's business-minded approach to the creative process that will gladly milk any available property for as much financial reward as possible, no matter how outwardly unlikely the prospect may seem. Prior to this, the xXx "franchise" (such as it was) consisted of only two movies. The first was an instantly-dated attempt to inject a juvenile passion for extreme sports into a Bond-like spy adventure, whereas the second came across as an empty coattail-riding rehash due to its brand-new hero and general lack of distinguishing features. It is all but certain that the existence of this new sequel can be credited directly to the extremely lucrative reinvention of xXx star Vin Diesel's other major action franchise, the car-centric Fast and the Furious series. The logic is relatively sound - if a moderately successful action series could eventually turn out a billion-dollar blockbuster with just the right degree of creativity and persistence, then maybe the prospect of making a much-belated sequel in a franchise where Diesel's main character supposedly died after one movie wasn't such an absurd one after all? This is Hollywood, after all. Stranger things have happened.
Plot's obviously not a major concern here as Return shamelessly bounds between riffing on established action tropes and borrowing heavily from the Fast series (with the most obvious instance being the "team of evil counterparts" premise of F&F6). There's a MacGuffin. Bad guys steal it. Good guys want it back. Enter Diesel as the eponymous rogue who is plucked out of his anarchic yet altruistic life off the grid by an NSA handler (Toni Collette) because he's the obvious match for the villainous gang of daredevils who took the MacGuffin (in this instance a mysterious black box of immense danger). In broad strokes, it's all familiar stuff to anyone who is well-versed in action cinema, especially movies involving spies and men-on-a-mission. If anything, it is that familiarity that will help one to enjoy this movie as it offers amusing twists on well-worn tropes with barely a hint of ironic detachment in sight. As with the Fast series, the hokey sincerity is the secret weapon that covers for any narrative weakness. The maturity can be detected in the ways that Cage has changed over the years. xXx started with him trashing a sports car that belonged to a videogame-hating politician; Return re-introduces him as he brings free cable to the poor of Brazil. The shift from empty rebellion to Robin Hood exploits demonstrates that the movie knows what it needs to succeed: a heart.
The heart definitely shines through when it comes to the rest of the characters and how they interact. Cage is the kind of character who would be very easy to hate in the wrong hands (and kind of was easy to hate in the original), but Diesel knows how to infuse him with the right mix of swaggering goofiness and emotional honesty that allows him to mug his way through many different types of scene. He's certainly given a fair few foils to play off against, whether it's Collette's world-weary handler or any of the allies or rivals whose outlandishness matches his own. The quality of individual performers varies quite a bit, though this depends on what material they're given more so than their strengths and weaknesses as actors. The obvious weak link for me would be Ruby Rose as a wise-cracking sniper; having her make constant quips would be okay if they didn't obviously suffer from an emphasis on quantity over quality and seem unsuited to Rose's generally laconic demeanour. That rapid-fire joke delivery is better-suited to the more broadly comical character of Nina Dobrev's adorkable quartermaster. Performers like Kris Wu and Michael Bisping are rather limited but are arguably saved by the movie not giving them too much to do. Still, there are a few people here who can rival Diesel in terms of charisma and physicality. Donnie Yen is an obvious stand-out as a coolly efficient criminal mastermind, though Deepika Padukone ends up being quite the surprise as his more righteous partner-in-crime. Rory McCann rounds out the cast very nicely as a charmingly gormless getaway driver who provides the greatest example of how having an embarrassing amount of heart takes clear precedence over vacuous coolness.
If there is a genuine problem that I have with Return, it's to do with the technical side of things. I'm not necessarily speaking about the special effects - the movie's blatant invocations of digital artifice are thankfully of the endearing kind. No, my real concern has to do with that most dreaded of modern action staples - the shakycam. Considering the rather stacked cast of action performers, I'm disappointed that Caruso and co. lean way too hard on the easy tension provided by disorienting camerawork and choppy editing. This becomes even more pronounced in visually drab settings such as a torch-lit nightclub or a concrete overpass. It's interesting to note that the most severe instances of this journeyman approach happen within the middle part of the film. It's as if the creators know that they have to spin the wheels in order to avoid undercutting the climax in any way - or maybe they just think that they're able to coast after the heady mix of sequences within the first act. I suppose I can understand the logic at work here - you don't want to risk putting the best action sequence in the middle of the movie. The problem is that this tiresome technique serves as a reminder that Return, for all the wildly entertaining ways in which it plays fast and loose with the action genre, still has its limits. Considering what kind of movie Return wants to be, the idea that it has limits at all is certainly a disappointing one.
Of course, even the scrappy action of the middle third or so isn't enough to sink Return. While it hits some notable lows, its highs are good enough to make up for it. There are a few solid set-pieces in here that manage to overcome the prevailing technical issues or even make them work. A good example is the scene that introduces Yen and his crew where the rapid-fire approach works well at selling their ruthless efficiency at pulling a heist, to say nothing of the ways in which each of these characters get to play around with action-movie staples such as bar brawls, stakeouts, or chases across land, sea, and air. I do have to give some credit to the appropriately ambitious finale that intersperses the movie's most implausible action sequence (which is saying something considering what comes before) with its most grounded, yet the two manage to find a balance thanks to the work that has gone into establishing all the important factors, even if that does extend to honouring some outwardly hoary clichés. Rendering your hero as an unstoppable force of nature is always a tricky prospect when it comes to setting up dramatically satisfying narratives - even by the disbelief-suspending demands of light-hearted action movies. To this end, the ways in which the other principal characters and their respective arcs and stakes are developed (or not developed, as the case may be) prove surprisingly remarkable. Their interplay doesn't just serve as amusing window dressing for the action but actively informs the development of the action itself without slowing things down - I was honestly surprised at times when I checked my watch and realised that more time had passed than I had thought. In the case of a movie like this, that's got to be a plus.
I'm hesitant to refer to xXx: Return of Xander Cage as "dumb fun" even though that is arguably the ideal way to describe it. Much like the recent Fast movies, the reluctance is mainly to do with how it establishes some actual core standards to back up its superficial adrenaline-junkie inanity, which seems simple enough but isn't as easy to do as you'd think. I have quite a few gripes with the state of modern action cinema; while Return does fall prey to a couple of the more noteworthy technical issues, it compensates with its strangely competent textual element. I've been getting burned out on action movies that favour cleverness over substance, so Return's simple yet earnest approach to its inherently silly set-up ends up feeling refreshing as a result. The plot is a simplistic genre pastiche but still manages to take on greater significance thanks to its diverse cast of characters who have their standout moments but are still greater than the sum of their fairly wacky parts. I still feel like there's some seriously untapped potential here that may yet be explored in a follow-up - it definitely needs someone on the team whose ability to capture action favours aesthetically amusing artifice over dull semi-professionalism that renders far too much of this movie a chore to watch, to say nothing of creators who can do something worthwhile with these kooky characters. Still, I'm not going to complain too much and act like this movie didn't prove an entertaining little breeze. If all of Hollywood's attempts to revive any old piece of fiction for easy profit managed to at least reach this one's level, that would be X-cellent.