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  Richard
  
Attwood
xXx
USA, 2002
[Rob Cohen]
Vin Diesel, Asia Argento, Samuel L. Jackson, Eve
Action / Adventure
  
Sony Pictures had a huge hit with the summer blockbuster Spiderman, riding on the new superhero fad ushered in by the excellent X-Men. You might wonder just why it took the famous webslinger so long to arrive on the big screen, and the answer is that the legal rights to a movie version of the Marvel Comic were so confused and entangled that several studious and parties were laying claim to ownership. This was all sorted out when Sony traded their rights to the Bond series in return for control of Spidey�s franchise.

Then, quite cheekily, Sony decided to make a spy film anyway. Shamelessly stealing all cues from our James, they felt it was time the younger generation got their own heroic agent. So we get Xander Cage (Vin Diesel), an extreme sports legend and anti-authority figure, picked by CIA boss Samuel L Jackson through a Dirty Dozen style deal, except in this case only one person gets to serve their country in return for their crimes being ignored. After a very dapper, besuited official agent (basically Bond) is killed in action, X is packed off to Prague to infiltrate an anarchic crime ring which apparently can smell government trained operatives a mile off.

This is one of the worst films I have seen at the cinema this year. While the post-
GoldenEye Bond films have been lucky to survive on Brosnan and little else, there really is no need for this blatant plagiarism dressed up as catering to the youth, but which ends up as slightly condescending. The filmmakers obviously flicked through a few �yoof� magazines and so thought they were on to a sure thing by getting cameos from pro-skateboarder Tony Hawk, BMX rider Mat Hoffman, rapper Eve and dance act Orbital (although presumably Slipknot were out to lunch and so German death-metallers Rammstein were drafted instead), while having Xander do extreme sports. He apparently learnt how to handle weapons playing PlayStation, �cos, y�know, that�s like, a cool thing to say. Dude.

The only really successful element are the stunts. Unrealistic, silly and dangerous they are mostly good fun, although some ropey CGI means the avalanche snowboarding looks nice (those particle effects are really hard to get right) but is blatantly nothing more than pixels. CGI also seems to have been used to paint Diesel�s face onto the stuntmen in close ups, something which is limited in its success. But the bangs are big and the gadgets fancy, even if the rocket launcher is a green drainpipe strapped to a camcorder.

Which brings me to the star. He�s getting paid a lot of money, and he certainly believes he should be a big name, but when he utters the line �their performances were terrible� I had a wry grin on my face. To be fair, Diesel is not terrible, but neither is he the new Bruce Willis. He is closer to Schwarzenegger in that he looks to be setting out on a career which started with roles as a villainous side-character in
Pitch Black and The Fast and The Furious, which may remain his best work even though he has moved to leading man status.
For all these new ideas the story is a lazy Bond rehash, but with less realism and added plot-holes. Present and correct are European locations, double-crosses, a humorous (at least, that was the intention) gadget inventor and dammit even a parachute with the national flag on it (which was infinitely cooler in
The Spy Who Loved Me and I think is actually repeated in Die Another Day). Even the ending is stolen, and unfortunately is blatantly set up for the sequel which is set for a 2004 release. Until then, this is a redundant pretender to Bond�s crown, with the cheek to deny him some really good ideas for stunts.
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