“XXX: State of the Union,” the follow-up to 2002’s testosteroneous blockbuster, represents a dubious milestone for the modern action movie: the simultaneous convergence and eventual exhaustion of every last nonsensical and obnoxious staple of the genre. The plot is preposterous, even by dopey action-flick standards. Popular centrist U.S. President Sanford (veteran TV character actor Peter Strauss) and several of his immediate underlings are targeted for assassination by hawk-like Secretary of Defense Gen. George Deckert (Willem Dafoe), who commands a secret army of special ops insurgents armed to the teeth and ready to overthrow the government. Deckert wants to kill the doves above him in the chain of command, seize control of the Oval Office and carry out an imperialistic plot for world domination, all with the full support of the American people. Impossible (and ludicrous) as that plan might sound to even the craziest of neocons or your average 6-year-old, Deckert seems utterly confident in his ability not only to pull off mass-murder at the Capitol during the State of the Union address, but to avoid any suspicion as well. (You know, there might be a place for a guy like him in the current administration.) Samuel L. Jackson returns as Augustus Gibbons, the stalwart National Security Agency agent who guided operations in the original “XXX.” To foil Deckert and his henchmen, Gibbons enlists a former protégé, Darius Stone (a perpetually scowling Ice Cube), to be the new XXX — America’s 007. Stone’s a gangbanger turned crackerjack Navy Seal who’s doing serious time in a Federal pen after running afoul of a corrupt, high-ranking government official (can you guess who that might be?). Of course, even after he’s sprung from the slammer, Stone is reluctant to help Gibbons — they’ve got “a past” — but the promise of serious firepower, big-busted babes and customized urban assault vehicles is tough to resist, and before you can say “That is one chubby secret agent,” Cube is saving America. It’s worth mentioning that he does so by teaming up with Scott Speedman and a band of homeboys from the hood led by “Pimp My Ride” host, Xzibit. No, I’m not kidding.
The dialogue is tailored for simpletons and delivered by actors who are either disinterested or wholly uninteresting. Whatever their reasons for doing so (and you can be damn sure “money” was the primary motivation), Cube, Jackson, Dafoe, et al, should be ashamed at having signed on for this orgy of violence, jingoism, sexual objectification and too-far-fetched action sequences, all set to a cacophonous skull-rattling soundtrack with the potential to induce brain hemorrhages. Granted, it’s the rare action film that combines thrills and a high IQ like, say, “The Bourne Supremacy,” but even with the bar set so low, “State of the Union” is still nothing more than patently absurd rubbish. (Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense action violence and some language. Running time: 101 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 29, 2005. Read the original PDF.