Film Illiterate, wherein the proprietor records movies seen, and sporadic progress through assorted lists of the "best". Originally started after regretfully renting something forgettable for the third time. I've forgotten what, but never again! A tedious endeavour since 2005. Hello. 🙂
Third in the nonsensical action series started with 2002's xXx, featuring Vin Diesel as an extreme sports nut, Xander Cage, recruited by CIA agent Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) for missions too X-X-eXtreme for regular spooks. Diesel didn't even appear in the 2005 sequel (he was replaced by Ice Cube); the series' resurrection after more than a decade is a transparent attempt to capitalize on his current success with the billion-dollar Fast and Furious franchise.
It apes the Furious formula as far as possible, with a large ensemble of misfits (one for every taste!) to blend comic relief with increasingly ridiculous action set-pieces.
The plot is actually rather enjoyable: with Gibbons killed by a falling satellite, Diesel (now living in South America) is recruited to track down the team of thieves assumed responsible. There are enough twists and turns to keep things moving at a cracking pace, which is to say that action sequences are punctuated by occasional dialogue. That the action holds up as well as it does is thanks in no small part to the casting of Donnie Yen as Xiang (Tony Jaa, by contrast, is criminally underused as Talon).
The actors, unfortunately, are given very little to work with. It's not just that the dialogue is terrible; in most cases the delivery is also severely lacking. I'm inclined to blame director D.J. Caruso for this latter issue, but regardless the outcome is embarrassingly terrible. Does the action save it? Maybe. But it's a close thing.