By Emilio Frenk.
Director: D.J. Caruso
Cast: Vin Diesel, Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone, Kris Wu, Ruby Rose, Nina Dobrev, Tony Jaa, Rory McCann, Tony González, Michael Bisping, Ice Cube, Neymar Da Silva, Toni Collette and Samuel L. Jackson.
Rating: Poor
Vin Diesel returns as the extreme sports athlete and agent Xander Cage in “XXX: Return of Xander Cage”, the third installment of the franchise that started in 2002 and unfortunately the results are pretty much the same as the other two films.
The movie starts when NSA Agent August Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) is recruiting the Brazilian footballer Neymar Da Silva as an agent; while this is happening a satellite crashes on them and kills them both.
Later in the story, CIA Agent Jane Marke (Toni Collette) tracks former XXX agent Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) and asks his help to recover Pandora`s Box, which is the artefact that “killed” Gibbons and is capable of destroying an entire city.
Cage accepts and he recruits the following team: The composed sharpshooter Adele Wolff (Ruby Rose), The DJ Harvard “Nicks” Zhou (Kris Wu) and getaway driver Tennyson “The Torch” (Rory McCann). All of them will be aided by weapons specialist Becky Claridge (Nina Dobrev).
Xander Cage and his team will try to recover Pandora´s Box but first they will have to defeat a group of rogue agents led by Xiang (Donnie Yen) who want the box as well.
Now Cage is in a race against time to recover the artifact before it goes to the wrong hands and create a major destruction to the planet and humanity as we know it.
“XXX: Return of Xander Cage” has very good elements like the action sequences that work at all levels and the chases that occur in the movie are very well choreographed.
The main problem of the movie was the storyline that for moments it was confusing. The script written by F. Scott Frazier was not clear by moments and the movie had ridiculous moments that honestly I didn´t buy at all.
As an action movie it does deliver the goods and entertains. The major problem was both the directing and the writing of the film.
In a positive note, this third part of the franchise does surpass the original XXX and of course the second one, which was a major flop.
This third part could have been a better film if the storyline would have been more clear and engaging since it had very good elements of an action/adventure film.
The ending of the film I didn´t buy it and part of the third of the film as well. The climax which happens in an airplane is very well made and choreographed but the transitions of some of the characters were all over the place.
As an action film “XXX: Return of Xander Cage” is entertaining and I do think fans of the original films they might enjoy it but unfortunately I cannot give it a recommendation for the screenplay and the directing of the film.
I invite you to leave your comments at emilio.frenk@gmail.com or my twitter @FrenkEmilio.