EvilHippy's Movie Corner

I just finished watching xXx starring Vin "BigStupidTommy hates him" Diesel, and I thought that it was a passable film, not great, but good enough. The effects were, for the most part, good, and the acting was what you would expect. The soundtrack was good, so was the editing, and the direction was allright, no major complaints on those points, but I do have some problems with the script.

Now I don't expect my action films to be particularly well written. I do like something above a Sidaris effort, but I'm not shooting for Mamet here. In fact if Jean Claude started spouting dialogue from State and Main that would probably increase the comedy factor of any film.

If you've not seen xXx, but want to and worry that I'll give you spoilers, well he wins in the end and the good-guys all live. The end, lots of things blowing up and crazy stunts in-between. There, now you don't have to worry about the spoilers anymore, we're all on the same page (more or less) and we can continue as equals.

Firstly, this solar powered submarine, is it remote controlled or what? How does it know which city to hit next? Couldn't, oh I don't know, the Navy of some country or other just blow the thing up? That's what Xander does in the end, why did him exploding it differ from if the planes had exploded it? Some of you would say, but the nerve gas breaks down in deep water--then why the hell do you put it on a submarine, why not a solar powered plane?
What happens when the submarine runs out of shots, does it return to base for refueling? And for that matter when did the world gain the technology for solar powered submarines anyway? I'd think the navy would like that alot better than dangerous old nuclear subs.

Second, how were they going to re-gather the nerve gas anyway? If you have to filter it through water how are you going to suck it back out of the open air? Wouldn't this gas kill ALL the people, thusly negating any glorious chaotical breakdown of society and government?

Next, the psychology of the villans is seriously out of whack. This is a hack screenwriters idea of what anarchical societies would think like. First if this guy is smart enough to lead all these people, then he's smart enough to realize that in a breakdown of government the power will be controlled by those with the most charasima, be it fear based or otherwise. These people would just set up more governments, probably not any better than those you have just destroyed. If he really wanted to create a governmentless free society, would he be the one in-charge of it? Doesn't that defeat the purpose? Isn't the point that all people are equal to do what they want when they want? I realize I'm debating with a poorly drawn character in an action movie, but I'd like the writer to at least consider these ideas before committing to a story.

At the end do you really think that Sam Jackson's character would be on a bridge that is about to be ground zero with no protection for his body whatsoever? We all know he'd be on the first plane out. His character isn't anymore stupid than the villan should have been.

Is this film really telling me that in a basement surrounded by electrical equipment, human bodies and heating pipes (it is cold-ass Prague after all) that the warmest thing for a heat-seeking missle to hone in on is a cigarette that is fifty yards away? Come on, I'm stupid but I ain't that stupid. For that matter why are the cops carrying a heat-seeking rocket? What did they expect to encounter, Jets or something?

This film did have some bad effects work as well. The avalanche sequence looked fake. I'm sorry, but the easiest way to spot shoddy computer effects is to see what looks to perfect and unreal in the scene. Jar-Jar didn't work because he didn't look real, he didn't fit in the environment, there wasn't enough reflection of color in the sets around him to make him seem real, and he looked fake. Gollum seems real becase all the little things are done right. The snow in xXx is alot like Jar-Jar, it looks fake, it moves too perfectly and in the end irritates me. The avalanche in Fellowship of the Ring was handled much better, at least it only looked like a model shot.

Also, while I like the choice of putting the title credits at the end, who was the person who decided to use the terrible lettering for the subtitles and the location names? The temp letters in the deleted scenes looked better.

And would it kill them to include a little pointless nudity? There appeared to be some in one of the deleted scenes, but they blurred it out.

But in the end I did like this film well enough, even with the CRAP script. It's still better than most of the last few James Bond films. If they could have just worked in a cameo by Rutger Hauer the film could have rated even higher.