Mr. Movie review: Vin Diesel provides this year’s first guilty pleasure in ‘xXx’
xXx: Return of Xander Cage — after 15 years — returns Vin Diesel to what we thought was a dead franchise.
The CIA has created Pandora’s Box. It can control the 30,000 satellites orbiting Earth. Someone accessed the device and brings one down. Only the box can do that, so a mole in the agency must have accessed the box and done it. Then terrorists assault CIA headquarters and steal the device.
Diesel’s retired and thought dead Xander Cage and his xXx friends are hired to find the terrorists and get the box. That leads to action-packed globe hopping, as Diesel and his crew do battle with the mole and with terrorists who may not actually be terrorists at all.
Writer Rich Wilkes — who penned the first two films — and director D.J. Caruso (I Am Number four) pack the film with action, badly edited stunts, bullets that always miss the good guys but never miss the bad guys, and with deliberately awful dialogue befitting Diesel and his co-stars’ acting limitations.
Mindless but fun entertainment that ends up the year’s first guilty pleasure.
xXx: Return of Xander Cage
Director: D.J. Caruso
Stars: Vin Diesel, Donnie Yen, Toni Collette, Samuel L. Jackson, Deepika Padukone, Tony Jaa, Kris Wu, Ruby Rose, Rory McCann, Nina Dobrev
Mr. Movie rating: 4 stars
Rated PG-13 for mature themes, violence, some language. It’s playing at the Carmike 12, Regal’s Columbia Center 8, the Fairchild Cinemas Pasco 12 and Queensgate 12, Walla Walla Grand Cinemas.
5 stars to 4 1/2 stars: Must see on the big screen.
4 stars to 3 1/2 stars: Good film, see it if it’s your type of movie.
3 stars to 2 1/2 stars: Wait until it comes out on DVD.
2 stars to 1 star: Don’t bother.
0 stars: Speaks for itself.
This story was originally published January 19, 2017 at 12:54 PM with the headline "Mr. Movie review: Vin Diesel provides this year’s first guilty pleasure in ‘xXx’."