Starring Ice Cube, Willem Dafoe, Samuel L Jackson, Scott Speedman, Peter Strauss
Written By: Simon Kinberg
Directed By: Lee Tamahori
Studio: Sony
Buy on Amazon.com

I saw the first movie in theaters but haven’t seen that movie since. Probably because I disliked it a lot and thought it was dumb. Now there is a sequel to that movie, which stars Rapper turned action star Ice Cube. The movie is just as mindless, but for some reason, I liked it better than the first film. Perhaps there was no Vin Diesel in it.

XXX: State of the Union starts out all quietly on a farm, and then some guy gets killed. You then realize that Agent Gibbon’s (Samuel L Jackson) headquarters is underneath the farm and is being broken into. Which seems very easy by the way, hell, even I can probably break in there! Gibbons escapes death with his nerdy tech guy while everyone else dies. Nice looking out Gibbons! You find out that Xander Cage died (hahaha they killed him off!) and they need to find a new XXX to find out why they were attacked. They need more of a bad ass, with attitude who’s tougher and has had some military experience. That’s when Darius Stone (Ice Cube) comes in. Agent Gibbon’s worked with Darius in the military but then he got into trouble and wound up in jail, several times. Ribbon’s breaks him out of jail secretly, since there is a lot of crooked politicians, policeman and other government people that are working for the enemy, Secretary of Defense Decker (Williem Dafoe). Gibbons and the new XXX try to hurry to find out who’s behind the attack(duh decker is!) and what else they have up their sleeves. Fa Shizzle.

Just like the first film, the movie is filled with bad CGI and special effects that is pretty much laughable. Like, come on, Ice Cube riding a boat unto a bridge and actually not flipping the damn thing over! Or even getting the boat UP THERE! You really need to hit the snooze button on your brain for this one folks. And then there’s this cheesy looking car scene where’s he’s chasing a train. I think a car out of Toy Story looked more realistic. It’s a shame that directors are taking the easier and cheaper way out of special effects and trying to use the computer TOO MUCH. The story was not really great either, not really original or believable. There’s two different types of political action flicks. Movies like Patriot Games, Bourne Supremacy and then there’s movies like this. Which the story and acting take a back seat so they can blow shit up. It’s hilarious seeing people flying in the air with big explosions and people emptying guns at one person. Though sometimes these type of movies are fun to watch, though I prefer films like the Bourne or Jack Ryan series. I was still entertained by this and actually enjoyed this movie than the original. I can’t stand Vin Diesel and just can’t take him seriously. Though I really can’t take Ice Cube as an action star seriously either. I think the next XXX should be Screech from Saved by the Bell. Plus I thought the whole Xtreme angle was really idiotic, and even more so when they start to quote Vandals’ songs. This time, they kind of played up XXX has a gear head who stole lots of cars, not some dopey extreme sports guy. I like Ice Cube a lot better than Vin Diesel so I enjoyed this one, even though there was a lot of problems with the movie.

The extras were surprisingly pretty good. There’s some featurettes on the making of the movie. How they did things and why. They cover most of the bases with the documentary “Convict to Hero.” The deleted scenes were more or less, pointless and added nothing to the movie, hence why they were cut. There’s three other featurettes, one on the train sequence and how it matched up with the storyboards and all that jazz. Plus there’s some audio commentary but I didn’t listen to that because I never saw the movie before.

So is the DVD worth purchasing? Only if you like the movie. I wouldn’t purposely go out and buy this movie without actually seeing it. It really depends on your threshold of movies and how you want to entertained. While I disliked the movie, I was still entertained with it.

Features:
Filmmaker’s Commentary
Deleted Scenes
Visual Effects Commentary
From Convict to Hero: The Making of ‘XXX: State of the Union’ Documentary
Top Secret Military Warehouse
XXX According to Ice Cube
Bullet Train Breakdown

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 CC
FRENCH: Dolby Digital Stereo

Video:
Widescreen 2.40:1 Color (Anamorphic)

Subtitles:
English, French

Favorite Scenes: I didn’t really have any favorite scenes.
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 101 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: