Viewed on its own trashy terms, it succeeds brilliantly.
XXX: State of the Union (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:135
Fresh:22
Rotten:113
Average Rating:3.8/10
Consensus: Even more absurd and implausible than the first XXX movie.
Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Synopsis: Ice Cube replaces Vin Diesel for this hard-bangin' sequel which favors fists, cars, and snooping over the original's heavy dose of extreme sports stunts. NSA agent Gibbons (Samuel Jackson, back... Ice Cube replaces Vin Diesel for this hard-bangin' sequel which favors fists, cars, and snooping over the original's heavy dose of extreme sports stunts. NSA agent Gibbons (Samuel Jackson, back from the original) finds his group under attack by well-armed, well-informed combatants, forcing him to activate a new XXX, Darius Stone (Cube), an old Navy Seal buddy currently cooling his heels in an army prison. It turns out there's a plan to whack the president (Peter Strauss) and a deranged secretary of defense played by Willem Dafoe is behind it. What's more important is the cool way Darius knows how to land a speeding boat on a bridge, then walk away in slow motion as it blows up behind him. Other great scenes include a tank battle on an aircraft carrier and a race with a bullet train that makes THE FRENCH CONNECTION look like a turtle race. There's some hilarious dialogue, such as when Darius recruits his old D.C. car-jacking buddies to ride into battle against the corrupt militia, leading to the "first tank-jacking in history." Scott Speedman plays a sympathetic Fed; Lola Jackson and Sunny Mabrey are the sexy chicks. There's lots of greal looking cars, cool gadgets, and pumpin' rap-crunk music. Director Lee Tamahori also helmed James Bond's DIE ANOTHER DAY and the 1997 thriller THE EDGE. [More]
Starring: Ice Cube, Samuel L. Jackson, Scott Speedman, Peter Strauss
Starring: Ice Cube, Samuel L. Jackson, Scott Speedman, Peter Strauss, Sunny Mabrey, Willem Dafoe, Lola Jackson, Xzibit
Director: Lee Tamahori
Director: Lee Tamahori
Screenwriter: Simon Kinberg
Producer: Neal H. Moritz, Arne Schmidt
Composer: Marco Beltrami
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Reviews for XXX: State of the Union
OK you don't expect a sequel to 2002's brainless XXX to be an action masterwork, but this is so preposterous that it feels like an overblown spoof of the original.
Ice Cube makes an appealing lead and no-one ever mentions that he might be a little on the tubby side to really cut it as an action hero.
This is better than its predecessor, but it still lacks something. It's too clean, sanitized and artificial looking, a film like this needs to get down, dirty and grimy.
If this sequel is any indication, the next XXX will be subtitled 'Bigger, Louder, Dumber.'
This could be the ultimate video-game movie, in that it sees the world entirely in terms of gigantic explosions that take place regularly every few minutes and which no one in the narrative seems to consider in any way out of the ordinary.
Ice Cube brings his trademark charisma and street sensibility to a film that wouldn't be nearly as entertaining without it, though he gets considerable help from better-than-the-material-deserves performances by Jackson and Dafoe.
Plays less like a sequel to XXX than a parody of it and the whole action genre.
There isn't a fresh moment in the entire 100-minute running time. The tediousness is impossible to dispel.
XXXcrement. If it weren't for Ice Cube's charismatic bad attitude, State of the Union would be downright unwatchable.
With Ice Cube at the wheel, it delivers all the adrenaline a junkie could ever want. Just don't pay too much attention to anything else going on in the movie.
XXX: State Of The Union is an action movie for liberals, and as far as empowerment fantasies go, it's a hoot.
There are really only two kinds of big-budget action movies: stupid, and good and stupid. Surprisingly, XXX: State of the Union is good and stupid.
So full of self-aware speechifying, howlingly bad verbal pissing contests, and audacious bulls**t plotting that it almost flies as a parody of itself. Almost. [Blu-Ray]
You always have the option of giving yourself a lobotomy before seeing this. If you do that, you just might like it (or even understand it).
Latest News for XXX: State of the Union
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