xXx (Rifftrax)

Film Year:  2002
Genre:  Action, Adventure
Director:  Rob Cohen
Starring:  Vin Diesel, Samuel L. Jackson, Asia Argento
Rifftrax Year:  2006
Riffer:  Michael J. Nelson

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

Back in 2002 it was hard to get away from the star/director combo of Vin Diesel and Rob Cohen.  The duo had just had a huge hit with the first Fast and the Furious movie (and I think all film fans know by now what that lead to), and they were about to reteam for a new action movie named xXx which was being touted as the new 007 franchise.  Helping it's favor was that later in 2002 Die Another Day was about to lay a giant fart in the James Bond franchise.  This movie sees Diesel playing an outlaw extreme sports...guy of some sort who is hired by the NSA to be a secret agent for...reasons, I guess.  Cue random action scenes that mean little to nothing.

In the immediate aftermath both Diesel and Cohen seemed to struggle quite a bit even after the success of xXx, seemingly because both deciding against returning for the immediate sequels to their star making films.  Diesel in particular banked it all on turning Pitch Black into his winning franchise, and while I quite enjoy a Riddick movie more that F&F and xXx myself, I guess that was more cult flavor than he anticipated.  The world would have preferred to see him return to the fast cars thing as opposed to outer space.

I haven't seen xXx since it came out.  Mostly because I hated it.  I have no ill-feelings toward Diesel, because I think he's a particular kind of actor who knows how limited he is and is aware of what type of roles he can play.  Rob Cohen on the other hand just rubs me the wrong way.  He seems to take concepts that are exciting in theory and then makes them as bland and boring as possible (I cite The Mummy:  Tomb of the Dragon Emperor as probably the ultimate example).

As I watch xXx for the first time in about fifteen years, I found myself fairly stupefied by the opening thirty minutes, which is probably the biggest assault of pointless nothing I've ever seen in a dumb action movie.  Diesel's Xander Cage character disagrees with a politician who dislikes rap music and video games for promoting violence, so he retaliates by stealing his car and driving it off a bridge (boy that proved him wrong.  Great job.  ::thumbs up:: ).  After this Diesel is given a string of tests without context that never really seem to have a point, not to mention the second one is just plain strange.  During that second test we're given some action that kinda looks neat, but feels like it serves no purpose and has no consequence.  It's just an excuse to see Diesel ride a bike through an invisible track where explosions aren't going to be.

And that kinda sets the tone for the rest of the movie:  to just be an excuse.  An excuse for Diesel to shoot this, an excuse for Asia Argento to wear that, an excuse for motor bikes and cars to drive, an excuse for bikinis.  And unfortunately very little of it is fun or exciting.  Granted the climactic action scene is fine, if lengthy, but I can't see myself forgiving an entire movie for not boring me for ten minutes.

I like a dumb action movie as much as the next guy, believe me I love Commando unconditionally, but xXx is dumber than normal and it fumbles any form of entertainment it goes for.  When a movie can't make exotic dancing look properly seductive then I just feel sorry for it.

The Trax

Mike's then recently debuted riffing machine of Rifftrax won my heart early on by riffing this silly movie, which would have been a dream episode of MST3K for me way back when.  Unfortunately I'm just now getting around to listening to this riff since I never really had a fair way to watch this movie without paying money for it, which I was very hesitant about doing.  But this blog lit a fire under my ass and I finally relented on buying a cheap blu-ray, though I may admit part of that is probably because I have at last aged enough to have forgotten just how shitty this movie was.

Note:  The page at rifftrax.com makes a note that this commentary might not sync up with the blu-ray, presuming it's the director's cut.  I'd like to point out that it syncs up just fine with it, since it's the theatrical version.

When Mike hits his target with this movie, he is on fire.  I threw my head back and barked a laugh at his observation of the film's many logic holes quite a bit, especially during Diesel's inane stunt with a politician's car because of political disagreement, which Mike points out might have been better solved by voting.  Unfortunately there seems to be a lot of dead space between laughs here, as at times Mike just degrades himself into coming up with his own cheesy one-liners to this cheesy action movie.  Mostly xXx is a fairly inconsistent humor stream, as Mike sometimes struggles to really have anything to say about the hollow emptiness of the movie.  During points like this in other riffs sometimes an amusement factor in the movie's badness can help push the grade up a little bit, but xXx just doesn't offer much in the way of "so bad it's good" to make up for it.

Also, and this is just a minor detail that has no bearing on the quality of Mike's humor work as a whole, but the syncing at the beginning is a bit botched.  Mike chooses the sync start to be the film's bizarre opening title, when one of the opening logos probably would have been more serviceable.  The first sync checkpoint is a good five minutes in, and I was having a hell of a time trying to figure out if I was drifting or not.

I don't want to be completely down on Mike's solo work, because Rifftrax had to start somewhere.  Sometimes a movie is just too much for one man to take on by himself.  A larger writing crew, or a co-riffer would have probably worked the energy in the room wonders.  That said, I'm a bit on the edge with this one, because when it's funny it's really funny.  But since that enjoyment isn't maintained against an unenjoyable movie I'm going to have to round down.

Average