xXx: State of the Union (2005)

[Darius and Lola watch the president gives a speech on TV. The president quotes “Wars come and go, but my soldiers stay eternal”] “Did the President just quote Tupac?” – Lola

Number of Times Seen – 1 (16 May 2017)

Brief Synopsis – A new agent of the X team must try and stop a rogue general from perpetrating a coup in Washington.

My Take on it – This is by far the weakest of the trilogy which is quite a disappointment since the premise actually has the most potential between all of the films.

I’ve always been a fan of films dealing with political intrigue and mystery and the idea here falls perfectly into that category.

Unfortunately, the execution is done extremely poorly and instead of being intriguing, the film just feels too fake and inauthentic.

This film has quite a competent cast with Willem Defoe, Scott Speedman, Samuel L. Jackson and Ice-Cube yet they don’t manage to even bring this idea up to par with the way that any season of 24 was able to give us.

The action scenes generally work here and they have some great stunts for us to be impressed by.

As with all of these three films, Samuel L. Jackson steals every scene he is in and I sorta wish that they would make a movie about his character instead of Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) or Darius Stone (Ice-Cube).

I think that if they chose to make another film in the series, that’s the direction they need to go in order to make it fun and interesting enough for us to enjoy it on more than just a superficial level.

Bottom Line – Weakest of the three films despite having the most potential for being the best.  The political maneuverings and premise actually are a good idea yet they are executed poorly and things seem too inauthentic. Despite a great cast including Defoe, Speedman, Jackson and Ice-Cube, they aren’t even able to bring this to the level of a season of 24.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – When the NSA is going over Darius Stone’s profile, one of the pictures shown was a picture of Ice Cube from when he was with NWA (Niggaz Wit Attitudes) hip hop group in the late 80s and early 90s. (From IMDB)

Rating – Razzie Worthy

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