Rebel without a clue

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XXX X

Cert 12A, 121 mins

Triple X, as I recall, was the logo of a make of safety glass used in cars. Cars there are, by the dozen, in Vin Diesel's spy caper. But safety isn't a feature: just the reverse. The new guy on the spy block makes his living at extreme sports that require him to break the law, and often all the glass in the house.

Even before he signs in as what the makers of XXX clearly mean to be a new-model James Bond, he roars off in a car owned by a reactionary US senator (the spoilsport sort who'd ban rock lyrics that condone murder) and drops it from a great height off a bridge in a delayed parachute descent that's videod by his mates.

In this single episode of free-fall criminality is encapsulated the whole concept of Rob Cohen's intercontinental thriller. Namely: one indestructible guy does stunts on film in America, Colombia and the Czech Republic which are then packaged and used to hype him as a renegade Bond without actually bringing the lawyers into a fight over the 007 copyright.

A chap in a black-tie and dinnerjacket is polished off in the precredits sequence, as if to say bye-bye to James and clear the screen for what could be called Bond's altered ego.

Xander Cage is Diesel's name, and it's clear from the start he needs no licence to kill, or indeed for anything else: the permit he uses is street cred. He's got a skull that's bald as a peanut and hard as a rock. If no handier weapon is available, he uses it to head-butt anyone arguing the toss with him. (Thus inside four weeks of our film censors introducing the new "Cert 12A", admitting very young children to the likes of XXX, head-butting has been judged an acceptable part of a hero's arsenal: I'm sure this lesson will go down big in school yards.)

The first we see of the character who's set to become a franchise fixture is the tattooed "X" on the back of his neck. That's his good angle. The rest of his body is tattooed, too, so that he looks permanently wrapped in a fancy horse blanket.

Vin doesn't lead with his chin, which is slightly underhung, but with what you could call "attitude". Anti-authoritarian attitude, that is. He's good at putting foot-to-ass and there are no jokey punch lines like Sean or Roger, since Vin doesn't do dialogue very well. He's recruited by Samuel L Jackson, the "M" figure in this secret-agent extravaganza, who wears scars on his left-hand profile to show he's been through the wars.

After dropping the senator's automobile 700 feet, Xander is given a choice: serve a term, or serve your country. The reasoning (if that's the word) is that a cutting-edge thug won't stand out the way a Savile Row-suited gent does in today's world of undercover operatives.

So, wrapped in a huge greasy sheep's fleece, he is dispatched to Prague, though the snatch of Harry Lime zither music accompanying him makes us expect Vienna. (Hell, don't quibble. They're both in Europe, what's the difference?)

There he meets the equivalent of "Q", the armourer in the Bond movies. Not some fussy old John Cleese fart this time, but a whizkid (stand-up comic Michael Roof) with a locker of death-dealing gizmos and a few titillating ones, such as his Peeping Tom binoculars that undress girls.

The enemy doesn't sit in an executive chair and pat plump Persian cats any more, either. He's an ex-Red Army commander, now pro-active anarchist called Yorgi (Martin Csokas) who just wants to destroy Prague and other cities of culture and watch the globe implode.

No fuss about collecting trillions of ransom money: disillusioned by the Soviet Union going phut, he simply wants the rest of the world to go bang. In this respect at least, XXX is as timely as Osama bin Laden can make it, though that'll probably not be a big selling point.

Cricitism of such a film is fairly pointless, since XXX is almost totally impenetrable by the higher intelligence. The film exists only for and by its ability to accelerate your adrenaline by showing Xander run the full Olympics course in extreme dare-devilry: helter-skeltering down stair rails balanced on a canape tray; roller-coastering supercharged motocross bikes whose wheels seldom touch the ground; or snowboarding down an alp after breaking out an avalanche to spread more of the white stuff under him and bury the pursuing Snowmobiles.

These stunts look impressive, but they don't any longer feel thrilling. The feats that Bond's stunt doubles did for real in the early years of the 007 franchise can now be simulated safely and cosily by technicians sitting in front of computers.

The other Bond-like elements in the mix are tediously formulaic: a Czech castle that looks like a draughtier Playboy Mansion, which doesn't stop bikini-clad bimbos frolicking in the fountains; and a Russian temptress called Yelena (Asia Argento) wearing a style called "bratty" in the press notes, whom Xander turns round to democracy by simply turning her on to her back.

The climax is one long, protracted yawn. We've raced so often against time to save the world that trying to board a sinister craft bearing explosives and headed on auto-pilot down river to Prague induces as much suspense as sailing ducks in the bath.

The whole film looks as if it's been made by a bunch of uncouth tourists who don't often leave the good ole US of A. It is a crudely effective bit of flag-waving for the warrior side of America, deliberately designed to wow the generation that thinks James Bond is your grandfather's hero. It hasn't much wit; it has no style; it has next to no distinctive direction simply one long rush of adrenaline.

While the creators of the upcoming Bond film may have sold the family fortune to the product-placement people, the new XXX construction engineers have built a commodity for today's American generation that distances itself from all those fusty notions of principle and patriotism wrapped up in English suiting.

No point in complaining that it's also a brainless, thuggish and totalitarian tract, in which impulsive thrill-seeking and national self-interest are indistinguishable and a rebel without a clue is anointed the all-American saviour. I hope the White House is writing a nice letter of thanks to Columbia Pictures.

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