XXX: State of the Union / * (PG-13)

XXX/Darius Stone: Ice Cube
Agent Augustus Gibbons: Samuel L. Jackson
General George Deckert: Willem Defoe
Agent Kyle Steele: Scott Speedman
President James Sanford: Peter Strauss
Agent Toby Shavers: Michael Roof
Zeke: Xzibit
Lola Jackson: Nona Gaye

Columbia Pictures presents a film directed by Lee Tamahori. Written by Simon Kinberg. Running time: 98 min. Rated PG-13 (for sequences of intense action violence and some language).

Hello. My name is Andy Wells, and I am a movie addict. I have been watching movies since I was three years old, but I don’t think I really developed a movie-watching problem until I attended college. I mean I would go on movie binges from time to time before then, and everyone watches a stupid movie or two from time to time. A lot of the time I didn’t even know any better. But lately I fear I have been losing control of my movie watching habits. It was when I started watching movies with full knowledge that they would be harmful to my health that I knew I had to do something about my problem.

My life changing moment came the other night when I rented XXX: State of the Union starring Ice Cube (Are We There Yet?) as Darius Stone, the new XXX. The fact that he was the new XXX was one of the key indicators that my problem had become so severe that I needed to seek out help. You see, this is the second XXX movie, and I didn’t even like the first one starring Vin Diesel. I suppose if he had accepted the offer to star in this sequel his problem would have been an even bigger one than mine.

Another indication that I had lost control of my movie viewing sensibilities was my knowledge that this sequel itself was a bad movie. When XXX: SOTU opened in theaters in April, it received resoundingly negative reviews. It rates a whopping 15% on the Tomatometer at RottenTomatoes.com. Totally rotten. “Plays less like a sequel to XXX than a parody of it and the whole action genre.” -- Josh Bell, Las Vegas Weekly. “Succumbs to a depth of directorial incompetence not seen since the likes of Megaforce.” -- Erik Childress, Efilmcritic.com. And the coup de grace -- “A salt-lick of under-hung jackasses.” -- Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central.

XXX is supposed to be some sort of generation X James Bond, a Bond for the X-Games set, a grittier modern Bond, with all the absurdity and a hip coolness that appeals to the primary movie ticket buying demographic, the twentysomethings. At least that was what the first movie was supposed to be, with the second it has mutated into some sort of Bond in da ‘Hood with a Bond that is not suave and debonair, but moody, reclusive and disagreeable. And it is all directed by Lee Tamahori, who seems to understand the wall-to-wall action and gadgets of Bond (he directed the last Bond outing Die Another Day), but has no understanding whatsoever of the modern black gangsta flick. His use of urban setting like chop shops and a hip-hop soundtrack is a grosser example of exploitation than most films that made up the blacksploitation movement in ‘70’s cinema. Worse still neither his star nor his writer Simon Kinberg (Mr. & Mrs. Smith) has absolutely any intuition of the essential elements of the espionage/action genre. Ice Cube is like a cardboard cut out that makes no effort to draw in the audience or even other characters to achieve the illusion of a character who could accomplish half of what he does here. Kinberg writes in authority figures and political manipulation, impossible escapes and femme fatales, but shows no aptitude for putting them into logical use.

I felt sorry for poor Scott Speedman (Underworld), who by this time should have a contract out on his agent’s life. He walked through his role as the one sensible NSA agent other than the two heroes, played by Cube and Samuel L. Jackson (Coach Carter), as if he was watching his entire career flash before his eyes. And what about Jackson’s presence in this film? I believe loyalty to a role is a sign of an actor with a sense of responsibility to his fan base, the people that made him a star, but there comes a point when a script is bad enough that a good performer’s input just becomes another version of prostitution. And don’t think I’m letting Willem Defoe (Spider-Man) off as the heavy. Shame on you two!

I believe my breakthrough came as I entered the final act of the film and the climactic chase sequence that finds all our heroes and villains hurtling toward nowhere in particular at mach two in a secret Presidential escape train, because train tracks are so easy to keep out of plain sight from the general public, especially if they run along the most traveled interstate highway in the country. Even as the plot approached this abhorrent absurdity, I found my jaw slacking open from the literally mind numbing experience. Like some sort of sedative had been injected into my bloodstream, the extremities of my vision began to blur and drool started flowing unabated out of my mouth. I felt my own braindamage begin to set in.

Luckily, my meltdown was only temporary… this time. I had to think about my family. My reputation. What would people say when they found out I had even held a movie this idiotic in my hands? I imagined many people could tell just by looking at me. Did I look like a stroke victim? Was there a portion of my face that had remained in its retarded revulsion brought by this cinematic idiocy? I couldn’t risk it anymore.

After just the beginning of months -- possibly years -- of therapy, my personal film aficionado physician says I am making progress. It is slow, but I’ll make it as long as I live one film at a time. I’m on step three of my rehabilitation program. I’ve already gone into my Netflix queue and deleted potentially harmful movies like The Pacifier and Transporter 2. Next, I moved important films like Fitzcarraldo and Nashville to the top of my queue. Now, I am confronting my friends and others I may have hurt. I am sorry. I hope you haven’t looked at movies like XXX: SOTU and rented them just because I have. I am ashamed to have seen it; and I hope you can forgive me.