XXX: State of the Union (UK: XXX2: The Next Level) Movie Review:


OK you don't expect a sequel to 2002's brainless XXX to be an action masterwork, but this is so preposterous that it feels like an overblown spoof of the original. Basically it's Charlie's Angels with testosterone. Bring Drew, Cameron and Lucy along and maybe it'd be watchable.

The original Agent XXX is dead, so his boss Augustus Gibbons (Jackson) springs an old colleague (Cube) from prison and installs him as the new XXX, a kind of renegade American James Bond with licence to do whatever it takes to get the job done. The current threat originates in the White House, where the right-wing Secretary of Defence (Dafoe) is plotting to oust the centrist President (Strauss) and take over. Enter Gibbons and crew, teaming with another agent (Speedman) and a few criminals (Gaye, Xzibit, et al) to save the world.

Excessively violent, extremely noisy and exceedingly fiery (virtually everything explodes), this exhausting film exists only to exploit action movie cliches. The story is ludicrous; there's little sense of character. Tamahori exhibits some of the exuberant skill he brought to Die Another Day; the film rockets along with an exaggerated energy that's actually quite hilarious. But it's so over-the-top that it's even more numbing than the first film. And with the high noise factor it's often excruciating.

Ice Cube manages to hold things together with sheer attitude; Jackson is clearly enjoying every minute; and Dafoe is in his villainous Spider-man mode, chomping on scenery with glee. But everyone seems aware that this is a deeply corny, illogical mess. The dialog is full of jingoistic nonsense ("We're gonna have to go further off the grid and outside the box!"); the special effects are so cartoonish that they're not remotely exciting, and they're not coherent enough to be funny. There's lots of cool stuff here for the boys--cars, guns, bombs, outfits, gadgets, big-bosomed babes. And the solution to every problem is to flamboyantly blow something up. In this film, America is a land of violence, injustice and madmen. It's just laughably bad. You might even say it's execrable.



Rich Cline

After Agent Augustus Gibbons' (Jackson) facility is attacked, leaving most of his operatives dead, he is forced to take his xXx program underground to
find out who is behind the assault. Now he needs a new type of xXx, one that can take the fight to them and is a military specialist. Enter Darius Stone
(Cube), ex-Navy S.E.A.L. and current military prisoner, a rouge soldier with exceptional stills he is just the man to be the new xXx.

Even after the success of the first movie, star Vin Diesel decided not to return for the invertible sequel but can the franchise survive without its star.

With only Samuel L. Jackson and Michael Roof returning from the original film, the filmmakers behind the action follow up had to come up with a
change to the concept. Now xXx is a NSA operation and not a person that Agent Gibbons is still over seeing. This means that anyone can be a xXx and
a person can be picked for the specialist operation. This opens the franchise to infinite change and possibilities.

With the xXx from the first movie, Xander Cage killed off (something we just hear about) the new agent is a complete change from the original extreme sports star. Ice Cube's Darius Stone is still the same hot headed, risk taking rebel who really doesn't like authority but Stone has a completely
different skill set. He is an ex-Navy S.E.A.L, sniper and expert diver who ended up in military prison after a mission went disastrously wrong. So now
we have a hip-hop star/gangster/soldier that takes no prisoners and does everything with an attitude. Ice Cube fits the role perfectly. He might look
slightly too overweight for the role but he takes the action sequences well and can handle himself in a fight.

Samuel L. Jackson returns to the role of Agent Augustus Gibbons. He is only in the film briefly however and he could have really done with some more screen time. Michael Roof also returns as the series answer to Q, Agent Toby Lee Shavers. He doesn't get to design as many gadgets this time around but he is on screen a lot more. Joining the returning cast is Willem Dafoe as Senator George Deckert, the US Secretary of Defence. He is your typical action film villain with grandiose plans and does a lot of monologing but the role doesn't really push Dafoe's talents to the limit. Scott Speedman
gets another chance to shine as Agent Kyle Steele, the all American hero NSA Agent. There are also some noticeable smaller roles for Nona Gaye and Sunny Mabrey.

With some good action sequences and a plot that isn't too taxing on the brain, 'xXx 2: The Next Level' is a decent improvement on the original and an entertaining popcorn movie. While it will never have what it takes to compete with the Bond and Bourne franchises, this is still high-octane action for the extreme sports generation.

Jamie Kelwick

Ice Cube fans will melt for this action flick but the rest of us will be just left with our proverbial mouths on the floor.

Why they had to make a sequel to the “roid-pumped” spy flick XXX is beyond me. And further more why make it at all without Vin Diesel. He was the only reason it made over $200 million the last time.

Early on in the sequel we learn that Diesel’s character has been killed off and that a new XXX has been sanctioned by Diesel’s old boss, Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L Jackson). This time it is an inmate named Darius Stone (Ice Cube), who has a past connected to Gibbons.

It seems that there is a rampant General (Willem Dafoe) who is after the presidency and will stop at nothing to get what he wants including assassination. Gibbons and Stone have to go off the “grid” and find a way to stop him. When Gibbons is killed, Stone is left on his own. Who will he turn to for support or will he let the criminal element inside him make him run.

I can safely say that XXX2 is one of the worst action flicks I have seen in a very long time. Directed by Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day), you really, really know that this director directed a Bond film. The music, action sequences, production design and overly silent love scenes are all vintage Bond. The insane thing is that the actors, chemistry, plot and script are all out of films that should star C-grade action stars like Dolph Lundgren, Olivier Gruner or Michael Dudikoff. Add a couple cheesy kung-fu sequences and this film would have been utterly perfect for Dudikoff.

I couldn’t finish this review without talking about the love scenes in this film. Sure there are love scenes but they are all just really awful dialogue sequences and maybe if we are lucky there might be a kiss. It’s like porn without the, well, porn. They were so bad I just couldn’t contain my laughter. At least if Dudikoff was on screen I could have expected it to be this bad.

I really felt sorry for the likes of great actors like Samuel L Jackson and Willem Dafoe who are forced to play roles like these. They reduce poor Jackson to playing this film’s version of Col. Trautman (Richard Crenna) from the Rambo flicks. I hope that they don’t rope poor Jackson into another one of these.

The only actor I liked in the film was Michael Roof, who plays this franchise’s version of Q. The guy is hilarious and eats up dialogue in all his sequences.

When it comes to this sequel I just have to say that only see it if you are a die-hard Ice Cube fan but skip it if your not.



So Says the Soothsayer.

Dean Kish

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