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XXX
XXX, starring Vin Diesel, is being alternately hailed and reviled as a reimagining of the James Bond genre, or something like that. Well, better it than Austin Powers. I guess it's like Bond in that there's a spy, a spymaster, a gadget guy, and a girl who might be good or might be bad and ends up with the spy at the end of the movie. The biggest way that it's not interchangeable with a Bond movie is probably the main spy character played by Vin Diesel. Bond is cool, collected, and sophisticated. Vin Diesel's character is hip and extreme. Bond has been to spy school or wherever it is that spies go to learn to be spies. Vin Diesel's character is a spy as an alternative to being locked up in jail for having stolen and crashed a car as a form of political commentary. His main training for being a spy seems to consist of said car stunt and hours of PlayStation.
Anyway, other than the difference in the main characters, this is basically a spy movie like any other, with the obligatory ski scene becoming a race between an avalanche, Vin Diesel on a snowboard, and an army of mercenaries on snowmobiles, and featuring everybody's favorite German Death Metal band since they watched Matrix, Rammstein. I did kind of think that they missed out on a clear opportunity to throw in an homage to Dr. Strangelove in the final action sequence.
There was definitely a setup for a sequel at the end of this movie. I think I would go see a sequel. Vin Diesel's character and the character of the spymaster, played by Samuel L. Jackson, were both quite likeable, even if the gadget guy was a bit of an irritating sidekick. Like most action movies, the plot was simplistic, but it had really good eye candy. Besides, who can hate a movie with Samuel L. Jackson in it? Oh yeah, and Vin Diesel wears this really groovy dead muppet coat.
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