If ever there was a movie that epitomized no-brained special effects extravaganzas, which throw a plot together only as a means to string together massive amounts of special effects in manners rivaling the great beast games of the Roman empire, xXx is it. To be clear on this, I like action movies, I like special effects, I like to watch things go boom and watch beautiful people who can't act. However, I must also say that I like intelligent movies, and I like it when the director and screen writer give me some credit.

Hence, I had some trouble with xXx, which pandered to my love of special effects, while at the same time really insulting my intelligence. I found a perfect solution to this, however, by watching the movie for the special effects, and laughing out loud, whenever something came up that was just too stupid for any human being in their right mind to take seriously. While the other movie goers in the theater might not have liked watching the movie as a comedy, I found no other way to view it which wouldn't make my head explode.

And thus, without further ado, let me tell you a little bit about a movie called xXx.


Director: Robert Cohen
Questions asked of him: How on earth did you manage to take such great possibilities for special effects and wonderful explosions and turn it into such a piece of sludge? Where you actively trying to make this movie as funny as it was (or, as in the case of many a cult classic, did it happen accidentally)?

I felt that Rob Cohen deserved a little introduction here, for never has a man fallen from such high intellectual standards to such a hilariously low standards. His early credits from TV are included in Miami Vice and ThirtySomething (while I don't know the specific episodes, these shows aren't known for their stupidity, expect maybe Don Johnson, but we'll leave that alone for now).

Somewhere around the year 2000 (this is where I started seeing his movies), his brain seems to have been sucked out of his head through a straw (perhaps his has some Egyptian background, and they started the mummification process early), because he started making some seriously stupid movies.[1] Having not seen his earlier work other than those three movies, I can just hope that he either became really stupid, really quickly, or just realized that he could make a crapload of dough by making stupid movies and not investing in things such as plot and editing.

In any sense, I think I have insulted the stupid director enough (ok, so I'll admit that I'm a little bitter with him).


Boom factor
Enough of your stupid rantings, what about the action? Was it as cool as it looked in the previews?

I wish that this question was as easy to answer as it should be. You see, my gentle reader, the movie was filled with special effects which obviously took quite a bit of time to put together and probably cost a good deal of money. However, something that runs through Cohen's movies is the horrible waste of great material. Different directors have made so much more out of so much less and left me salivating and lusting for more (please get that image out of your head, its for everybody's good).

However, Cohen has this innate ability of making me watching a beautiful special effect and then yawning afterward because there was no point, or in the simple 3 seconds of watching it I saw about 15 different ways to make it better (now one begs the question, what would have happened with this movie if I were in charge, and we all know the answer to that: the best movie ever would have been produces, which is why Robert Cohen is getting paid for this, and I am not... or something along those perfectly logical lines). Cohen is uncanny in his ability to make me not care about his special effects, I'm not sure exactly where this happens, if its in the heart, or in the fact that he hires very, very, very, ridiculously bad editors for everything (btw, there is a point in the movie where one of the worst edits in a high budget film occurs, its in the scene where Vin is hiding behind a few cars before he blows something up... ok, well I think its the 2nd one of those scenes).

To be honest, there are some great special effects in this movie. However, Cohen, as I stated before, makes them very subpar and while they are great in their own right, I was left wanting more.


What was good.
Since you hated everything so far, what was good about this movie?

Well, gentle reader, I've been waiting for you to ask this question. If Cohen planned to make this movie so enjoyable in the way that I found it enjoyable, I would be surprised. You see, every bit of movie making which required a little finesse, Cohen handled with all the finesse of a construction worker handling a jackhammer in a china shop. There were so many points where the writing was so atrociously bad, that I had to burst out laughing. My personal favorite, which I believe makes this movie a classic among classics, was the point where the bad guy is killed and his boat runs into a cliff, at which point it, obviously, bursts into flames and explosion. Because, as everybody knows, whenever a vehicle runs into a cliff, there has to be a huge explosion in which the bad guy must definitely be killed. If anyone watched this and wasn't as entertained as I was, they just don't realize (as I'm sure Cohen himself doesn't), the comic genius of Robert Cohen.

Bringing it to a close
In order to probably give homage to this film, I plan (as many of you most likely would enjoy) to drive my boat into a cliff, and hence instantaneously and spectacularly blow up for the entertainment of my audience. (both of you)

As you can tell, I think I enjoyed this movie for many reasons that others did not. I went in hoping for a good special effects movie, and what I got in return was a hilarious comedy with some special effects thrown in to boot. I personally think I got more than my money's worth and I should actually send Cohen some more money for entertaining me so. In fact, this might actually piss him off a bit, as he was probably positive that nobody with half a brain could have enjoyed this movie.

I think I'll actually challenge Mr. Cohen to a duel. He produces as crappy of a movie as he can, and the challenge is for me not to be entertained by it. I guess that is too easy, I can be entertained by some very bad things (such as presidential addresses), perhaps a better duel would be for him to try again to make a movie and entertain me in one method, and if I'm entertained in another, he loses. Oh well, I'm left without a proper duel here, so I'll leave this as an exercise for the reader to decide (and I believe that the comments area would be great for coming up with duels between me and the director... but remember, the odds must be stacked in my favor, I really hate to lose).


Footnotes...
[1] -- I have written reviews on two of his previous movies (without knowledge beforehand, I just happened to find out that I hated his movies while writing this review... I'll definitely keep it in mind for later). If you are curious as to what I thought of his other movies check out these links:
http://www.epinions.com/content_16221441668 (The Skulls)
http://www.epinions.com/content_51623792260 (The Fast and the Furious)


Recommended:
Yes