"It’s called Triple X, yet not a single tittie shot!" (reviewed by OG)

Vin Diesel stars as Xander "XXX" Cage, the notorious underground thrill seeker who until now has been deemed untouchable by the law. NSA Agent Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson,) forces XXX to cooperate with the government to infiltrate an underground Russian crime ring and avoid going to prison. Betting XXX can succeed where other conventional spies have failed, Gibbons sends XXX to enter this world of crime undetected, using his natural athletic prowess and a whole lot of attitude. Enlisted for a dangerous covert mission, he must combat a clever, organized, and ruthless enemy far beyond the scope of his experience.

I caught this one in Montreal; in a gigantic French theater with seats so plush you could easily fall asleep during the opening 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. The preview for the new Cory Nguyen-directed action flick THE TRANSPORTER (which looks bad as hell) was in French, but the actual film was in English, thus confusing a gaggle of French-Canadians, and relieving yours truly. I only mention the setting because the film, which has left many an American audience cheering and gasping in awe, barely moved the folks around me. One guy in the corner clapped at all the cool shit, and he was wearing a Yankees cap. Wonder where he was from?

The key to TRIPLE X is leaving your cynicism at the door and wearing your love for pure visceral action on your sleeve. That’s what this is all about, folks. First off, don’t expect Grade A acting from ANYONE in this flick. Vin Diesel has an amazing presence, but his stoic _expression and bass-driven voice allows for a very limited range (the exchange between Diesel and rapper Eve is damn hard to watch). The main baddie’s Russian accent is so over the top it almost outdoes John Malkovich’s in ROUNDERS…. almost, and love interest Asia Argento, while the most gifted of the bunch, is given very little to work with. All she’s got on her agenda is to look sultry, seductive, and dangerous. Samuel L Jackson rocks as Diesel’s boss, but he’s barely there. When he’s on though, the motherfucker is ON.

Barring these little inadequacies, TRIPLE X delivers more action that the last 3 Bond films combined (Not dissing Bond here, TOMORROW NEVER DIES rocked me, but the last one sucked whale ass), and provides some stunts that I’ve honestly never seen before. There’s a motorcycle sequence set in “Colombia” (AKA: Somewhere in Nicaragua with a bunch of Mexicans dressed in fatigues playing the drug dealers…. cause that’s what us Colombians look like folks: Mexicans) that kicks major ass, and I’m usually pretty unimpressed by that particular brand of stuntwork. There’s also a buttload of gunplay, gadgetry (as well as a nice jab at the uselessness of Bond cars), and a CGI-driven (but not bad looking) avalanche surfing scene that had me laughing my ass off with some sick kind of childish joy.

So…does TRIPLE X outdo Bond? Well…yes and no. I’d stack Diesel against Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, George Lazenby, and Pierce Brosnan any day, but Sean Connery would whup his ass AND fuck his girlfriend at the same time. The frenetic style definitely overcomes recent 007 outings, and the jaw-dropping stunts set a new high for spy flicks to conquer. In other words, it’s a purely fun popcorn flick, and any purist and asshole snob will obviously call it crap.

That’s okay, though…there’s enough of us “people who get laid on a regular basis” to go around.

(8.28.02)