Thursday, October 19, 2006

So bad its good -- XXX: State of the Union


Now I know what you are thinking. WTF? XXX: State of the Union? They couldn't even get Vin Diesel for that, and I refuse to see it on general principle. Well, sorry to say, but you are wrong.

Of course, it does have a few knocks against it. Such as the fact that its a sequel to a piece of garbage, the approximately 800 plot holes, and the fact that the director becomes an increasingly jump-cut/MTV-style "filmmaker" as it goes along, making the last half-hour borderline unwatchable.

But it has Ice Cube in his finest performance since, uh, All About the Benjamins? Plus SLJ and Willem Defoe in full-on "gotta make movies to get paid" mode. And a white guy who is constantly refered to as "college boy." So theres that.

Key scenes:

SLJ meets with Ice Cube in prison. Here's where you get some of that precious XXX backstory the viewers demand. Apparently Willem Defoe ordered SLJ and Cubes unit to start some sort of fire, burning civilians or something, and they refused emphatically. So emphatically that Cube was forced to break Defoe's jaw. The highlight of this exchange is SLJ turning his head to reveal a burn scar, to which Ice Cube says "I like what you did with your face."

Cube somehow jumps a boat onto a cop car, followed by him doing the slow motion walk in front of an explosion. Which somehow saves college boy from certain doom.

Any scene with Xzibit, who gets to finally play out his fantasy of owning a chop shop. What? He's got a show where he does that too?

The CGI shots of the capitol building. Not sure if they just couldn't get permission to shoot there, were too lazy, or just thought a CGI capitol would be cool. Personally I hope it was the latter.

Random throwaway line where they say Xander Cage (Vin Diesel from the first movie) was killed in Bora Bora. Well, that explains everything.

The final scene where Cube chases down the presidential bullet train(Guh?) by jumping a car onto the tracks, popping the tires and turing the car into some sort of tiny locomotive. Also Scott Speedman as NSA suit turned badass telling the president to jump into his awaiting arms while being suspended below a helicopter.

Actually, scratch that last one. And yes, I saw this in the theater.

And for your viewing pleasure and general edification, here's a random fan-created trailer I found.
BEWARE SPOILERS! Just kidding. Not really.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I would smile all day long, every day, if it guaranteed a unicorn getting punched in the face."
Rachael Ray

i read this quote in Entertainment Weekly and thought it was the funniest shit i heard in a long time. i thought you would enjoy it.
Shibby