Movie Review: XXX

XXX (2002) 

Directed by Rob Cohen

Written by Rich Wilkes 

Starring Vin Diesel, Asia Argento, Martin Csokas, Samuel L. Jackson, 

Release Date August 9th, 2002 

Published August 8th, 2002

The team that brought us the Fast & the Furious is back with yet another big dumb action flick called XXX. Unfortunately, where Furious reveled in it's ridiculousness, XXX would like to be taken as seriously as possible as an action movie and a potential franchise. But after seeing XXX, I would rather see Fast & the Furious 2.

XXX is the nickname of Xander Cage (Diesel), an internet entrepreneur whose underground video's of himself performing amazingly dumb and illegal stunts sell well enough to support XXX's lifestyle of gorgeous bimbo's and extreme sports. Unfortunately for Xander his most recent stunt attracted the attention of the National Security Agency. Samuel L Jackson is agent Gibbons who sees XXX as expendable talent and enlists XXX to go to Prague and infiltrate a group of terrorists who call themselves Anarchy 99.

The terrorist leader is Yorgi (Martin Csokas). Yorgi, in typical terrorist fashion, is bluffed by XXX and and takes him into his evil lair. It's not long however before XXX's cover is blown and now he must rely on a Russian agent already in Yorgi's inner circle, a beautiful woman named Yolena (Asia Argento).  The surprising thing about XXX is that it wasn't made by MTV films. With it's glossy market tested style and soundtrack that is far more prominent than the film's dialogue, it would fit in perfectly in the MTV canon.

Indeed XXX is the kind of film that was pitched to the studio marketing department before being pitched to producers and directors. It plays like a two hour version of those late 90's Mountain Dew commercials.

The whole film is cornball and cliched, with flat uncomfortable dialogue that tries desperately to sound young and hip. Coming from a cast of 30-somethings it sounds lame and uncomfortable. A scene early on at a party at XXX's pad we hear dialogue from actors who are clearly not comfortable with the modern slang and come off like that high school teacher who desperately tries to sound hip, but comes off as simply embarrassing.

You can see the corners that were cut in order to secure the more audience friendly PG 13 rating. There is no nudity but the lack of totally naked flesh is made up for in two hours worth misogyny and objectification. As for Vin Diesel, he is a credible action star, although he needs to work on his one liners if he ever wants to replace Arnie and Sly.

The poser dialogue and cheesy effects especially the snowboarding scenes, all serve to create a slick soulless version of the Bond series. The Bond series however earned the right to be cliched and sexist by being successful more than once. XXX has been annointed the next great franchise even before the original script was finished. 

Typical modern Hollywood.

Movie Review: The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) 

Directed by Rob Cohen 

Written by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar 

Starring Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, Russell Wong, Michelle Yeoh 

Release Date August 1st, 2008 

Published July 30th, 2008 

Brenden Fraser has long been one of my favorite actors. No actor does big, goofy galoot, nearly as well as Fraser who has essayed roles as a caveman, as George of the Jungle, and in the Mummy movies a 40's era action movie leading man. Often, even when the movie really stinks Fraser remains above the fray, a goofy, good time presence. Unfortunately, even Fraser's good natured goofiness can't rescue the latest in the Mummy series, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. By the end of this 2 plus hour slog even Fraser seems tired.

When we rejoin the Mummy-verse, Rick O'Connell (Fraser) and his wife Evelyn (Maria Bello, replacing the not returning Rachel Weisz) have retired from the adventure business. After turning back the attack of the mummy Imhotep twice, and even an encounter with the Scorpion King, Rick and Evy are in a welcome respite. At home in their stately manse in England they spend lazy days fishing, writing and being bored out of their minds.

Yes, they actually miss the days when they were risking their lives against supernatural forces and narrowly escaping death through cunning and guile. So, when a British official shows up asking them to return to duty to accompany an ancient artifact to China they leap at the chance. And, as luck would have it, Evy's brother John happens to have moved to Shanghai and opened a nightclub.

Meanwhile, Rick and Evy's son Alex (Luke Ford) happens to be in China discovering the lost tomb of the legendary Dragon Emperor (Jet Li). Unfortunately, after he makes his discovery, Luke gets double crossed and a group of military exiles take possession of the Emperor and set about restoring him to eternal life. Now, Luke and his parents must join forces with an ancient witch (Michelle Yeoh) and her daughter (Isabella Leong) to battle the resurrected dragon emperor and his army of Terra cottar warriors.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor was directed by Rob Cohen with a tin ear for melodrama and big action. Listening to characters in this latest Mummy movie chat, you get a painful series of scenes where characters state what just happened ir what happens next in stultifying exposition. It's the most perfunctory, irritating explication you can imagine. When they aren't explaining things to us that we are already painfully aware of, characters are professing their feelings to each other with lunkhead-ed platitudes that would make the folks at Hallmark wretch.

Of course, you can't expect a Mummy movie to have great dialogue, if you've seen the previous two blockbusters, and the offshoot, The Scorpion King, you know what you can expect of the script. You have to just hope going in that there won't be so much of those endless reams of expostion. Hopefully you get big action and effects scenes to drown out whatever waste of breath dialogue there may be. Stephen Sommers, who directed the first two Mummy movies, mastered the ability to put action and effects ahead of all else.

Unfortunately, Sommers is gone and replaced by Rob Cohen whose resume includes XXX and Stealth. Those films stink pretty bad but The Mummy Tomb of the Dragon Emperor somehow manages to be even worse. On top of the horrendous dialogue and atrocious melodrama, the action and effects of this Mummy sequel stink. Like digital Ed Wood characters, the digital armies of the dead look worse than most modern video-games and are a hell of a lot less interesting.

Compounding the problems is the grounding of Jet Li. Promoting Jet Li as the Dragon Emperor was a downright lie. Li's role is little more than a cameo. The dragon emperor is more often than not a dull special effect that hardly even looked like Jet Li. When Jet Li does show up he is asked to actually act as opposed to leap about and do things we want Jet Li to do. It's a baffling choice but essentially the filmmakers chose a bad CGI of Jet Li over the real life Jet, arguably one the greatest human special effects of all time.

As a third movie The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor had low expectations when it was completed and somehow manages to come in worse than those expectations. This is a tremendously bad movie that leaves little doubt why Oscar nominee Rachel Weisz rejected the idea of coming back to the role of Evy. With a script this bad and a director this inept it's a wonder this film attracted the onscreen talent it did. I'm still a fan of Brenden Fraser and with the charming Journey To The Center of the earth in theaters, it's not to hard to forget Tomb of the Dragon Emporer. I just cannot forget it fast enough.