Sometimes life is worth living, my friends.
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I am not gonna watch the trailer. But hopefully they do not fuck it up by having Donnie Yen and Tony The Tiger on the same side!
Good to see they’ve upped the innuendo ante. I always considered its absence an oversight for a film called XXX.
I’ll be there opening weekend.
I never thought I’d get to re-enter the “Xander Zone”, but life is full of surprises.
It seems like Donnie Yen and/or his whole team start out as the bad guys but either team up against a common enemy or have been misunderstood from the beginning or have a change of heart and want to become good guys so they can go extreme sporting with Xander Cage. Any of these possibilities I support.
I’m still bothered by the moral gray area of XXX, whereas he’s just an extreme sports guy who has zero qualms when it comes to murdering thugs and villains.
It would be like if suddenly Tony Hawk was cool knocking off insurgents.
That being said, this looks like the best of the bunch. Hopefully Darius “XXX2” Stone is back.
This looks very stupid, but the right kind of stupid.
They’ll have to address the elephant in the room; what has Xander had to do with the gamergate movement? Does he see himself as their profit and feel they’ve betrayed his teachings? Did he fight them? Did he join them at his lowest moment and now wants redemption? That’s probably my favourite option.
I expect Yen and Jaa have 5 or 6 fights between them which obviously is not going to happen. So this is bound for disappointment.
Evan from Birth Movies Death loved every minute of it.
The XXX franchise gets its FAST FIVE.
That’s good to hear. I just read the UK Empire review which gave it 3/5 with their usual caveat being that the reviewer is kinda above sincere enjoyment of such things but guilty pleasures and all that.
Donnie Yen and Tony Jaa are the only reason why this film alerted my jaded radar senses. I am actually kind of excited about this. This could be the xXx movie that makes me a believer. It could be the FURIOUS FIVE of the xXx franchise.
*FAST FIVE
I’m with you Shoot. I really didn’t care for the prior xXx(es). It’s kind of foolish to be excited for them though since it is not like Hollywood movies have a great track-record with properly utilizing Asian action talent.
Still I hope this is their FAST FIVE, that way we all win.
Heck I’ll even accept it if it is just a mere low-tier (but still enjoyable) 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS of the series.
Just seen it – its fun fluff, very much a lighter cousin to the Fast films. Action is mostly clear and Donnie owns it. It’s exactly what you think it’s gonna be.
In terms of martial arts-fights, how much can we expect?
I don’t want to spoil anything, Shoot. Hopefully when you see it you won’t be disappointed, bearing in mind that this is not a full on MA film.
Fair answer. Thanks,karlos!
Hope you dig it, Shoot!
I’ll save my full comments for the review proper but I’d recommend adjusting the expectations. It’s better than the low bar set by the prior two but if it wasn’t for a few cool action sequences I’d rank this one as fully-not-good. It’s not terrible mind-you, it tries to be. At least they don’t Donnie Yen, they waste Tony Jaa though. So yeah: this one is 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS not FAST FIVE (still like all the F&Fs better).
“this one is 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS not FAST FIVE” Urgh. now my expectations are none.
It’s better than the former and not as good as the latter. Let’s be reasonable here.
I´ll be reasonably sceptic now. How does that sound?
I saw it yesterday. This could be the next TORQUE. A “It’s so dumb its fun!” film.
Donnie Yen has one great fight scene on a plane.
They definitely don’t waste Donnie Yen (is what I meant to say before I omitted a word), which may be a first for any HK action star being in a Hollywood movie. The Yen action scenes are worth the price of admission (motorcycle-skiing!).
I will have to respectfully disagree with you Mr. M, I didn’t find just about every single character in 2 FAST completely obnoxious.
Felix: I will agree this movie did seem to really want to be TORQUE though (I liked TORQUE better, again I could stand the characters in that one).
Shoot: still go see it, my disappointment is making it sound WAY worse than it is (my main problem is I hated the characters here, if you like them or don’t mind them, you’ll enjoy it way more than me (like the others, remember I’m the asshole who thought GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY wasn’t really all that good and was trying too hard, really man don’t listen to me!). I didn’t hate it, it’s fine. Saying it’s no FAST FIVE is kinda mean, few modern big budget franchise tentpole whatever action movies are.
Saw this in IMAX 3D. Which did not do it any favors. The action looks disjointed and out of place due to the 3D effect.
I wonder if i should watch it again to get a second perspective.
I enjoyed the hell out of this movie. It was stupid, cliched, overblown nonsense, but it was fun. DONNIE YEN WAS SUCH A FUCKING BADASS!!!!!!! Between this and his religious devotion in Rogue One, I think this dude will be getting serious work for at least the next decade. Also, how old is he? I could just google it, but dude looks like he’s still my age (35). Probably not though, right? Probably 45 or 50, right? Okay, I’m gonna google it…………. MOTHERFUCKER IS 53!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That’s literally the opposite of 35!!!!!!!!!!!! DID YOU SEE THE STUNTS “HE” “DID” IN xXx?!!!!! Okay, he probably had help from a whole stunt team. But….. damn, I’m really happy to see DONNIE MOTHERFUCKING YEN getting to be the best part of xXx right after he was the 2nd best part of a MOTHERFUCKING Star Wars movie (2nd after the funny droid).
Just to be clear, you already know if you’re going to like this movie (spoiler: you probably won’t). The trailers were very clear about the fact that this is a big, dumb, silly action movie with ridiculous stunts and an aging Vin Diesel. It’s a gleefully stupid movie, with a plot that basically amounts to “go find the McGuffin, nope that’s a fake McGuffin, go find the real McGuffin, oh no we’ve been betrayed”. It’s cliche-ridden and lazy. And it’s blatantly trying to copy the Fast and Furious formula of forming a multi-cultural team of colorful characters with unique abilities to stop cartoonishly villainous terrorist plots.
All that being said, I had a lot of fun with this one. The action scenes are mostly good, although the editing gets a bit too quick and choppy at times. There are a lot of good, REAL stunts performed by REAL stuntmen, which you don’t always get in these big blockbusters these days. Donnie Yen is definitely the standout in the this movie (and does that dude ever age?). He gets to do a great combination of stunts, hand-to-hand martial arts, and gunplay and the dude is still a hell of a performer. Tony Jaa also gets a few cool moments, but he feels terribly underused. Also underused is The Hound from Game of Thrones. He gets a few funny lines and a weird gimmick, but not much screen time. Oh, and Ice Cube shows up briefly because he was in the second film.
Overall not a great movie but still a fun, brainless, action flick if you want something like that. It definitely feels like it was written by and for 14-year-old boys. Especially in their understanding of women. Holy shit, this movie treats women as objects (and rewards) worse than a Michael Bay movie. Ugh.
I give xXx: The Return of Xander Cage two and a half out of five rounds of Grenade Roulette.
Opened to $50.5 million internationally. Though $20 million domestic.
Considering it cost only $85 million, we may get that sequel just yet.
I liked this one quite a bit, and I didn’t even like the first two. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to make a dumbed-down, off-brand version of the FAST AND FURIOUS movies that is still somewhat enjoyable, but here we are. Good job, guys. Looking forward to Vern’s review.
geoffreyjar- I would argue LETHAL WEAPON 4 makes pretty good use of Jet Li. Disrespects him, maybe, by implying he would lose to Gibson in a fight, but I don’t think it wastes him.
I’ll save my full thoughts for the review (particularly as my favourite thing is the biggest spoiler (although it has already been mentioned here and apparently spoiled in some of the most recent marketing)) but I dug it, more so than the previous films (though I dug STATE OF THE UNION a lot at the time), and as a FAST agnostic (and in truth someone who likes Vin in theory more than practice) I would probably take it over any of the FAST and/or FURIOUS sequels.
I’m not getting my hopes up for a xXx4, but if Vin can continue the Riddick franchise after a financial blackhole like CHRONICLES I think it will happen if his heart his truly set on it. Besides, repeating unsuccessful business models is appropriate for Trump’s America; it’s why we’re likely getting another TERMINATOR that’s a sequel which ignores some of the other sequels and is also kind of a reboot and a remake. Again
“Disrespects him, maybe, by implying he would lose to Gibson in a fight”
After getting impaled on an iron bar, falling underwater and getting shot 5 or 6 times point blank! It’s not like Gibson (and Glover! It was 2 against 1 and he still almost killed both of his opponents with his bare hands and feet.) randomly knocked him out. I didn’t see any disrespect here.
I did say maybe ;)
Pacman: I never gave LETHAL WEAPON 4 a thought. I am totally behind you that one. Excellent showcase for Jet Li, such a perfect one that LW4 producer Joel Silver decided to not follow it for his actual Jet Li showcase: ROMEO MUST DIE.
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November 2nd, 2016 at 3:13 am
The motorbike ski thing did it for me. This looks amazing. But is Donnie Yen a bad guy or a good guy?