There was always something a little off about the premise of the xXx films. It posits that, when facing global calamity, rather than a group of highly trained professionals like, say, Navy Seals, we would be better served by placing our trust in extreme sports enthusiasts. Those guys who take selfies while dangling off skyscrapers by a toenail and a tattoo? They are, in fact, the saviours of the world.
Of course, credibility was never the point of this series that, buoyed by the dogged endurance of B-movie franchises such as The Fast and the Furious and The Expendables, returns to our screens 12 years after the last instalment and 15 since the last appearance of muscle-bound skateboarding ladies’ man Xander Cage (Vin Diesel). The point of the xXx movies has always been their preposterous stunt sequences and in that at least this very silly movie doesn’t disappoint. Cage skis through a forest, leaps out of a crashing plane without a parachute and braves some of the most treacherously terrible lines of dialogue ever written.
