xXx: State of the Union (2005)

Starring: Ice Cube, Samuel L. Jackson, Willem Dafoe, Xzibit, Scott Speedman, Nona Gaye, and Bruce Bruce
Grade: C-

All things considered, I can definitely see why xXx: State of the Union was a bomb but not entirely a franchise killer at the same time.

Summary

In Virginia, unknown soldiers attack an NSA bunker and destroy the place. Agent Augustus Gibbons (Jackson) narrowly escapes with gadget guru Toby Shavers (Michael Roof). As they drive away from the scene, Gibbons gives Shavers a contraption he confiscated from the bad guys and asks what it is. Apparently, it’s “ten generations beyond the NSA”. Gibbons comes to the conclusion that whoever hit them are prepared for war and they knew where to attack. He says they have to go off the grid. The new “xXx” can’t be an extreme sports enthusiast. This time around he has to be dangerous and possess “more attitude”.

Enter the incarcerated Lt. Darius Stone (Cube), a former Navy Seal with the classic attitude of “I don’t listen to anybody”, seemingly a requirement to be a part of the xXx Program.

In Washington, Secretary of Defense General George Deckert (Dafoe) tells President James Sanford (Peter Strauss) how 16 NSA agents were killed in the Virginia attack. The two go to the budget meeting, but Sanford says it’s now going to be about the Virginia attack. He says the new military bill will help them, and he’s going to bring it up in his State of the Union Address this week. At the maximum-security U.S. disciplinary barracks, Gibbons, under the guise of being Darius Stone’s lawyer, goes to meet with Stone. It’s been nine years since their last encounter, and Stone is not happy to see Gibbons. In fact, he doesn’t want anything to do with him. Gibbons tries to do his “lions in the zoo” speech that he used on Xander Cage to convince him to do the mission over prison in the first xXx, but Stone doesn’t fall for it. Gibbons then points out that the people that attacked took out members of their old unit. Since they came for Gibbons, they will come for Stone. He offers Stone a chance to take the fight to them first. Without saying it directly, he accepts. Gibbons indicates a plan to break him out during his yard time the next day.

At the crime scene in the NSA bunker, NSA Agent Kyle Steele (Speedman) is told Xander Cage was killed in Bora Bora last night. They don’t know where Gibbons is either, but they do know he was one of only three people who had access to the main elevator to get into the bunker. The other two are dead. Steele makes it known they have to find Gibbons. Back at the prison, Stone escapes onto the roof after a fight with the guards, and Gibbons and Shavers show up in a helicopter for Stone to jump onto to get him out of there. Once they get to their getaway car, Gibbons christens Stone the new “xXx” because of Xander Cage’s recent death. It refers to deep cover agents with special skills, and Stone is that man now. After they get Stone some food, Stone tells them he’s running the show now and doesn’t answer to anyone. An annoyed Gibbons agrees to it since they’re on the run as well. They have to lay low for a bit, so Stone takes them to a chop shop in the hood to meet with his friend Zeke (Xzibit). He asks where his ex-girlfriend Lola is at (Gaye), but she’s over in uptown. They go and meet with her, and Stone offers her the ’67 GTO they’ve been driving in exchange for a new car and a place to stay. The deal is accepted. At the same time, sparks noticeably fly between them. Sometime after, Gibbons debriefs Stone on what the mission is. They need information on a hard drive that is located inside the old bunker, so Stone will go there. Gibbons will get the rest of the information from his house.

At the bunker, Stone breaks in and causes a ruckus, with Shavers in his earpiece giving him notes. He causes a diversion by blowing up a car outside. This forces Agent Steele and everyone else to leave the bunker to check it out, allowing for Stone to get in, steal the hard drive, and escape relatively unscathed. A chase ensues, and Stone gets to a nearby harbor and leaves on a boat. On the way out, he blows up the other boats when the agents get there, so they can’t come after him. Shavers gets pulled over on the bridge by some cops, so Stone jumps his boat off another, lands on the bridge, and causes a crash that blows the cop car into the water to save him. He then gets into the car with Shavers and drives off.

Elsewhere, the agents gather information about Stone. He was born in the south side of D.C., his mother died young, and his father raised him. In 1988, his dad was killed by a stray bullet, and Stone went off the grid. He then became a criminal, doing everything under the sun until he decided to join the Navy SEALS. There, he became a top sniper and did well in urban recon and demolition. He even has the highest dive in Navy history: 250 feet. Gibbons recruited him into an elite unit, level 5 classified. This is where he ran ops in Eastern Europe until Christmas in Kosovo. Their general ordered them to set a fire to clear civilians, but Stone refused and led a mutiny against a four-star general and current Secretary of Defense General George Deckert. Deckert had Stone court martialed for a 20-year term. He got ten years for disobeying direct orders and another ten for breaking Deckert’s jaw. They pull up the video feed of Stone meeting with his “lawyer” in prison, and Steele sees its Gibbons. He makes the manhunt official, if it wasn’t already.

That night, Gibbons breaks into his own home to get the rest of his information needed. He hears footsteps upstairs and goes to investigate. He’s attacked by a henchman and is brought down. Sitting on Gibbons’s couch is Deckert. He taunts him about their old mission years ago that permanently scarred Gibbons and tells Gibbons he knows about Stone. He’s not worried in the slightest and orders his man to kill Gibbons and make it look like an accident as he leaves. Soon after, the henchman gets in the car with Deckert and drives off just as the house explodes. Gibbons is dead, and it’s reported as a gas leak explosion. Steele is told about it. At the same time, Stone, Lola, and Shavers watch it on the news. Undeterred, Stone observes the hard drive he was asked to steal and finds a piece of film taped to it. They put it under a projector and see several high-ranking officials tied to this larger conspiracy, with one important official Charlie (Sunny Mabrey) being named. Stone and Shavers observe Gibbons’s funeral from afar, and they see Deckert is there, along with Charlie. In a disguise, Stone tracts Charlie to a restaurant and reveals his identity. She’s very aware of his exploits. After scaring away the person she was meeting there, Stone questions what her connection to all of this is. Apparently, she was Gibbons’ contact on Capitol Hill. She’s an aide to the Senate Subcommittee on Military Action. Eventually, she agrees to get him close to Deckert.

At some sort of ball, Stone goes in disguised as a waiter. There, Charlie points out that Deckert is with vice chair Jack Pettibone (Ned Schmidtke), and they’re surrounded by SEAL Team Four. Stone walks by to listen to the two’s conversation. We only get the last part of it, but it sounds as if Deckert is planning something big in three days, and it’s going to happen whether Pettibone supports it or not. Based off of his response, he definitely doesn’t support it. Shortly after, Stone is spotted, though he’s able to escape with the help of Charlie.

Back at the bunker, Steele is told by his subordinate that half of Stone’s old troop are still enlisted, but the other half are missing. The latter half are the ones that supported Stone in the mutiny towards Deckert. Steele is starting to realize Stone may be right in this situation and there’s a larger issue at hand. Despite Charlie’s initial pleasantness once she takes Stone back to her place, she calls in the authorities and Pettibone is shot and left in the house to set up Stone. The authorities show up, but Steele convinces everyone to chill out, going in by his lonesome to talk to Stone. Stone tells him everything and how he’s being set up, and Steele seems to start believing him. He leaves unharmed and goes to figure out a new gameplan. The rest of the authorities move into the building to kill Stone anyway, but he takes them out and escapes. Eventually, Stone and Steele will come to an understanding on who the real enemy is in Deckert, though it takes some time to convince Steele.

Eventually, this will lead to Stone captaining his team in a mission to stop Deckert and his plans to take over the United States of America as President.

My Thoughts:

The toughest hurdle to climb here is making a xXx movie without Vin Diesel, the perfect star to helm a series whose focus is extreme sports and a punk-rock core of defiance. Though Ice Cube fits the mold of rebelliousness, he’s not the guy to take over a franchise like this. With this dramatic of a switch in stars, you get an entirely different look and feel to the xXx franchise, alienating fans of the first one that made it what it was. Since Cube doesn’t fit the style of the movie and what audiences know the first one for, the sequel didn’t gain any new fans either. If you wondered why this sequel bombed so hard after the success of the first movie, this is the main reason why. With xXx, you’re getting this high-octane, pedal to the metal, stunt-filled action movie. In xXx: State of the Union, there seems to be an effort to do the same thing but making Ice Cube the guy to lead it all, with accompanying rap music to try and mix with the punk-inspired style.

To say it didn’t work is an understatement.

Before we get to Ice Cube himself, let’s talk about the music.

First of all, the scene in which we are introduced to Cube’s Darius Stone is accompanied by a Korn song. Whose idea was that? You don’t have to put Cube’s own music to introduce him but a gangster rap song to show how different Stone is compared to Xander Cage would be a great way to show the changing of the guard. Korn is so far off the mark from the character and the persona that Cube has cultivated over the years that this decision comes off as laughable. The rest of the soundtrack is a mixture of rock and rap and there’s not a single time where it works. Rock in general doesn’t fit the vibe of what they’re doing with the character, or the style Cube brings to this movie. When you got scenes like Stone quoting 2Pac and Xzibit being a supporting player, you should know why the grungy rock soundtrack or remixed rap songs to sound like rock doesn’t fit.

It fits the xXx franchise, but it doesn’t fit xXx: State of the Union. This is the issue and another clear reason as to why this sequel failed.

Leading up to the climax, we get a chase sequence where a remixed version of “Fight the Power” by Korn and Xzibit is played and it’s god-awful. It got me thinking how the true Public Enemy anthem would’ve been the perfect song to represent the story of this sequel, but since they felt the need to pigeonhole the movie into the first one’s style, they completely fucked the legendary song to fit it, making you want to turn the audio off during the film’s most pivotal action sequence. Harder rap songs from Public Enemy, Ice-T, the Beastie Boys, or Pac would’ve made a lot more sense than the outrageous shit they did decide to pick.

On the other hand, if you truly wanted to make this rock/rap infused, gritty spy movie work, they should’ve had DMX star in it. I couldn’t think of a better rapper that encapsulates this hard-to-do style. With his and the Ruff Ryders love of four wheelers and such, and DMX’s talent for choreographed action movies, he would’ve been a much better choice to star. We already know he fits the renegade attitude of the xXx Program, but he would’ve done a decent job at recreating the stunt-filled action sequences Vin Diesel did in the first xXx. To save time, the car-jacking friends the character has could’ve been the Ruff Ryders or even The Lox. Right? Tell me this wouldn’t have worked?! They even call Stone “X”. At first, it feels a bit sacrilegious considering it was Xander’s nickname in the first one but here, it becomes a nickname for a member of the program. However, it would’ve made even more sense for someone like DMX to star as it was his real-life nickname too! All signs point towards this being the better move! The only hurdle they would’ve had during this timeframe was DMX’s well-documented legal troubles but in a perfect world, he would’ve been the star of State of the Union. Then again, had they did have DMX star, there’s not a shot in hell he would’ve been asked to return for xXx: Return of Xander Cage like Cube was.

If they had to change stars but keep the same vibe of the first movie, you could’ve even hired someone like Keanu Reeves. If he tackled surfing so well in Point Break, he could’ve easily taken on the extreme sports vibe that made the first film popular. This way, they wouldn’t have to change things so much for this movie.

Unfortunately, Ice Cube doesn’t fit this style of action movie. Does he look tough? Does he look like he can scrap? Is he generally good in action movies or tough guy roles? Without a doubt, but a spy film is a tough sell for me. It’s just hard for me to buy him in a choreographed fight sequence where he’s taking bad guys out like Steven Seagal. We know Cube can’t throw hands like that. In fight scenes, they needed to play to his strengths more and added a sense of realism to it in terms of how he approaches a group of bad guys. He needed to fight nastier and grimier with more knockout blows and less set-up aikido moves. Yes, technically Stone is a Navy SEAL, but you can’t insult the intelligence of the audience by having someone as famous as Cube act like Bruce Lee. They didn’t even do this with Vin Diesel in the first film. Sure, Xander wasn’t a SEAL, but the action still made sense based off Diesel’s limitations. It doesn’t help that at times, Cube looks like he’s thinking about the steps beforehand.

Seeing him in Mission: Impossible scenarios comes off as comical because we know it’s fucking Ice Cube. The scene in which he’s wearing a suit and glasses for his disguise was me laughing at him, not with him. You either add more humor to the mix to let us in on the obvious ridiculousness of the scenario, or you cast someone else. Here however, you can tell Cube takes himself way too seriously, as does the movie. The script seemed like it was written entirely in catchphrases and comebacks to make Cube look cool which gets tiring quickly. He refuses to look weak. Look, Vin Diesel is guilty of this too (more so in his most recent movies), but at least he looked worried when he was trying to stop the “Silent Night” bomb from exploding. In the climax, Stone drives a Ford Shelby Cobra 220-225mph directly into a bullet train and jumps onto it without even looking like he was the least bit scared. He just stuck to the classic “Ice Cube scowl” pretty much the entire time, and it was annoying as all hell. I get you’re tough, but you have to at least try and act like you might lose to bait us, asshole. I’d never thought I would say Vin Diesel is a better actor than someone, but here we are.

There’s a level of over-the-top ridiculousness in xXx: State of the Union that makes some scenes cool, but others look like a parody of an action movie. This is saying something considering the regularity of outrageousness in the xXx series. However, for every cool scene like when they storm the Capitol building, you get scenes where Stone drifts a fucking tank. Stuff like that bothers me. This includes the prison break scene. Not only did I feel stupid seeing Ice Cube jump off a building and onto a helicopter, but the fact that Gibbons got the helicopter there without a single person hearing it beforehand makes zero sense. It pops up out of nowhere and not a single guard in the entire prison saw it or heard it flying near! How is this possible?!

One thing they did well was the decent backstory given to Stone and how he’s connected with everyone involved. I enjoyed his connection with Gibbons and their on-again, off-again friendship, as well as their equally important ties to Deckert, with us finally getting the answers to why Gibbons has the scars on his face. The ongoing joke about the two killing Charlie was pretty funny too. You could also argue the supporting cast being the franchise’s best, though this is mostly due to perpetual bad guy Willem Dafoe being brought into the fold. I do think the character of Deckert would’ve benefitted with a little more screentime to hammer his evilness down. He talked about the bad things he was going to do, but he didn’t show it as much as he needed to. If anything, he looked like a pussy at times. It’s little details like when they enter the presidential bullet train and Deckert yells at the workers to leave that bothers me. Right there, you knew it was over for him. If he even thought he had a chance to pull his plan off, why wouldn’t he shoot and kill every witness? It wouldn’t make sense to let anyone go!

Scott Speedman was a likable surprise, the climax was pretty exciting despite the obvious CGI, and I liked the scene when they jacked a tank. Honestly, I enjoyed seeing Stone and the team he creates take on Deckert and the bad guys, despite most of them being car jackers with guns. There was fun to be had in this sequel, so for all the bad that happens, there’s more good than you would expect.

Though the film is respectful to Xander Cage being that they named a whole division after his nickname, and Stone getting Xander’s “xXx” tattoo to legitimize his own character, I think it was too much for the audience to say Cage was killed. Thankfully, this was retconned in the third movie but at the time, it spelled doom for our main character in this film from the start.

With all of this being said, xXx: State of the Union wasn’t nearly as bad as everyone said it was. Even so, it’s easily the worst entry in the xXx franchise, mostly because it was so ridiculous. Some movies are so ridiculous they get a pass because maybe that was the intention (like Machete for instance), but the main problem for xXx: State of the Union was how serious it took itself even with some injected humor. There are still some good scenes, solid action sequences, a plot that makes a little more sense than the first, and Jackson getting a much bigger role this time around. However, the final product was riddled with too many mistakes to save it. On top of all that, the wrong actor was cast to try and help continue the franchise. Though Ice Cube isn’t terrible, it’s clear from the start he doesn’t work in this type of scenario, and we see through it.