xXx: Return of Xander Cage

I actually watched Rob Cohen’s original xXx in the theater way back in 2002. Thankfully, I didn’t pay to see it (I’d just started working at a movie theater and got in for free — bless the few perks of minimum wage labor), but I did see it at a time when I was beginning to become conscious of my tastes in film. I was, for the first time, understanding what is a good movie and what is a bad movie. My memory of xXx, which came out at the height of Vin Diesel’s early fame (which quickly sputtered out), is that it was, at that moment, the worst movie I’d ever seen. It might still be. While I’ve managed to avoid it for the last decade and a half, I have, woefully, seen a whole lot of bad movies in the meantime. But the premise — combining the spy flicks with the (even then) wavering extreme-sports craze and squeezing it in alongside a lot of brain-dead machismo — made for one of the dumbest movies I’d experienced.

So now, all these years later, I’m obviously perplexed as to why we’re being treated to an official reappearance of Diesel in an xXx movie with xXx: Return of Xander Cage. Of course, there’s the obvious reason: There’s a dime to be made. But I can’t believe (or maybe I refuse to believe) that anyone was actually clamoring for this thing. This isn’t some beloved franchise. It was a meatheaded, loud and long-forgotten action movie now brought back from the grave. And the verdict on this sequel? Well, it’s still dumb and noisy, but it’s not as dreadfully and aggressively stupid as the original xXx. I mean, I still don’t want to watch the doughy and tatted visage of Diesel (who turns 50 this year) traipsing around in tank tops and blowing things up. But someone — this time around at least — had enough sense to surround him with an appealing supporting cast (beyond Samuel L. Jackson) of action standouts like Donnie Yen and Tony Jaa.

This is, however, faint praise — and also where I stop with the positives since you can only go so far in comparing it to its predecessor. It’s kind of disappointing that this cast (sans Diesel) isn’t given a better movie to be in. The basic premise is utilitarian and nothing else (Xander Cage comes out of retirement to help the government suss out some nefarious evil masterminds), and I can generally warm up to action movies as absurd and over-the-top as this one. The issue is that nothing here is especially fun, a lot of which I suspect has to do with Diesel, whom I’ve never found particularly likable or charming. Nothing changes that here. He’s inserted inside of a plot that makes zero sense and constantly contorts on itself, while the action (aka the entire point of the movie) is dull and repetitive, still relying too much on the whole extreme-sports gimmick. He’s far too charmless and mumbly to raise this movie from its self-imposed muck. It all adds up to a slightly better mind-numbing sequel to its mind-numbingly awful originator. I suppose it’s worthy of something in that respect. Rated PG-13 for extended sequences of gunplay and violent action, sexual material and language.

Now Playing at Carmike 10, Carolina Cinemark, Epic of Hendersonville and Regal Biltmore Grande.