xXx (Triple X), 2002

An interesting movie!

The first time I watched it, I thought the movie was a bit confusing, the story line was not clear, the cast was strange and completely odd, too different to the normal norm of traditional "spy/secret agent" style. Finished it, I was only impressed with the first scene, in which a secret agent was shot, and all the stunts included afterwards, but that was it.

I was reluctant to watch it the second time.

By accident, I saw the book wrote by Mel Odom, based on the above movie.

After reading it, I began to understand the plot of the movie a bit more (but if you want to read it, please don't expect the book to be of any great literature value, for you may not like the writer's style of writing!).


Watched the movie the second time, equipped with a better knowledge of the plot, I thought the movie was quite good. Of course, it would remind viewers of all the James Bond movies, as well as "The Rock" (1996), a great thriller with Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. Why?

Because this movie was about fighting the evil force (the main theme of the above movies). In this xXx, this evil force was a group of ex Russian millitary, called themselves "the Anarchy 99" after the year 1999, when it was formed. The group then devoted their energy into a kind of "underworld" way of life. They based their organisation in Prague, Czech, and dealt mainly with car thefts, brothels, drugs, etc. However, that was only the surface. Secretly, they planned to wipe out the whole world, or perhaps, only the main governments that had any say in the running of the world. Why they did so? Because they wanted a revenge for their comrades who died unneccessary for an unworthy cause.

Who should be there to fight the evil force but the US government, with agent Gibbons in charge of the project (played by Samuel L Jackson)!

The beginning of the movie was impressive, but a bit of a kill joy, when a secret agent (who faithfully following James Bond style in dressing and everything else!) got killed. Out the old type of secret agent, in the new type: spunky, shaved head, muscled and tatooed Xander Cage (xXx), a gangster of the street (played by Vin Diesel).

A bit shocking, when our hero in this movie was one with a history of car theft, full of bad languague (and may be with a multitudes of other sins?), bad dressed, always looked and talked like baddies in bad movies.

The heroine of the movie was a bit odd too: the beautiful Yelena did look a bit anaemic and too unsophisticated/immature for the role (was it because of her teenage figure, or her make up?). Regardless, the whole combination made the movie strange indeed.

Regardless, the plot was like this: after losing more good agents while dealing with the Anarchy 99, agent Gibbons decided to train a gangster of the streets to really fight dirty (and hope that this gangster would survive better, or else!). The race is on, for the US government knew that the Anarchy 99 was doing something secretly with dangerous biological weapons.

Marton Csokas was marverlous in the role of ruthless Yorgi, leader of the Anarchy 99. Yelena played the role of Yorgi's girlfriend, but was really a secret agent of Russia.

If one managed to overcome their own expectation of how secret agents should really look (following James Bond's style), this movie could turn out to be quite gripping, a true thriller, and worth the 124-132 minutes watching. Can't remember much about the music chosen for the movie, but all the stunts involved (car chasing, roller skating, parachute jumping, etc) were real breath-taking. Strange that xXx could escape the avalanche quite OK on his simple surfboard, while others on special vehicles could not run fast enough! (That, and a few scenes, in which xXx on motor bike, got shot/rained with bullets, and did not get injured at all!).

Another strange point in this movie: our hero never really killed anyone dead (except in the end, when he had to kill a baddy who smoked cigarettes constantly (who was about to shoot xXx and his troups), and the notorious Yorgi). In another word, xXx seemed to kill only when he needed to survive in order to finish his mission successfully.

A fictional story, but interesting regardless, especially at the end of the movie, when contrasts were shown, between the peaceful sceneries of the beautiful city of Prague, and the race to stop the biological rockets from destroying this peaceful city.

Would the movie be better or worse, if our hero and heroine were more worldly (less saintly) and more "sophisticated"?

(Wrote this review for my friend, about a month ago!)