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XXX: State of the Union Our rating: Rate this movie   Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: PG-13 (for sequences of intense action violence and some language) Theater release: April 29, 2005 by Columbia Pictures Directed by: Lee Tamahori Runtime: 1 hour 34 minutes Cast: Ice Cube (Darius Stone), Samuel L. Jackson (Agent Augustus Gibbons), Willem Dafoe (George Deckert), Scott Speedman (Agent Kyle Steele), Peter Strauss (Sanford), Sunny Mabrey (Charlie) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

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Well, they sure blowed 'em up good in XXX: State of the Union. And they pimped many rides; in fact, one main character is played by Xzibit, the rapper and host of MTV's Pimp My Ride. XXX is a car-nut's fantasy. The characters sneak about the Capitol in a chameleon GTO with a trick body kit, a Shelby Mustang, and an array of Humvees and Explorers. All have fancy wheels, loud exhausts and tinted windows. The police and intelligence organizations seem not to notice.

In trying to describe this non-stop action extravaganza, I'm reminded of a college newspaper reviewer who declared a James Bond film "too unrealistic to be believed." But that's exactly the point, isn't it? In its defense, XXX has few aspirations to provide believable dialogue or character arc. Plot is almost entirely ignored. The improbable action scenes make Spider-Man seem like everyday reality.

In this second installment of the XXX franchise, Samuel L. Jackson reprises his role as NSA super-agent Augustus Gibbons. He discovers a nefarious plot within the National Security Agency to overthrow the government. Given the grave threat to the President's administration and his very life, Gibbons must find an operative worthy of the XXX title. Somebody has to save the nation! Think of the suave 007, with his understated British aplomb replaced by a streetwise special forces commando. The stodgy weapons officer, Q, has been replaced by Zeke (Xzibit), a gangster who steals and pimps out high-end cars "from the same neighborhood as the White House!"

Gibbons finds his man in prison. Darius Stone (Ice Cube) has been languishing in a cell for nine years, having been betrayed and railroaded by political chicanery. He's not in a patriotic mood, but the chance to get out of prison, shoot guns and create mayhem is too much to resist.

In the tradition of the Bond girls, the women in this film are three dimensional, and two of those dimensions are silicon-enhanced. Charley Mayweather (Sunny Mabrey) is a femme fatale, the hot babe who may or may not be the enemy. Lola (Nona Gaye) is a carjacker with a heart of gold. The rest are eye-candy, strutting about in skimpy costumes and wearing sultry looks. They wear spike heels and short skirts. They rarely get to talk.

Among XXX's memorable contributions to the action genre is a tank battle on the hangar deck of an aircraft carrier—a sister ship of the one I served on in Vietnam. But where we were prohibited from smoking on deck (lest we ignite the fuel and ordnance), Ice Cube's Darius uses a battle tank to wipe out his adversaries, with no apparent ill effects to the ship. Guns blaze, rockets fly, and Darius is able to maneuver his tank with incredible grace, dodging rockets by sheer force of his excellent driving skills.

The retired USS Hornet stands in for a modern nuclear flattop, which appears to be anchored somewhere in the Potomac River, ready to mount an assault on the Capitol. It seems a bit of a stretch that such a gargantuan ship could navigate the Potomac. Somebody might notice such a non-stealth battle plan, but then again, this is an action movie.

XXX features some amazing stunts, but much of the action is computer generated and comes across like a video game, a la "Grand Theft Auto." The bad guys, led by the renegade Secretary of Defense (Willem Dafoe), make their getaway in The Presidential Bullet Train, which is able to race along DC's commuter rails at 200 mph while Darius gives chase in a hot Mustang. Of course, there are no railroad crossings to worry about, or trains coming the other way. And where the bullet train is bulleting to is anybody's guess.

Director Lee Tamahori is no stranger to the action genre, having directed the Bond film, Die Another Day. The New Zealander's first feature was the hard-edged Once Were Warriors, which dealt with marginalized urban Maori. Once Were Warriors was a film with a deep social conscience and truly compelling characters. Then Tamahori moved to Hollywood. He's making a lot more money these days, but his promise as a director of meaningful films has taken a dive. That said, he propels the action along at a breakneck pace, jumping from one explosion to the next with reckless abandon. Guns blaze and the Capitol building gets trashed.

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