Review: XXX Return Of Xander Cage

Dhishoom! Dhishoom! Bang! Bang! Dhishkyaon! Crash! Thoda Headache.

2 stars

Mini Review:

From the very first scene, the audience is plunged into action as they see satellites crashing on to people. Of course a rogue agent or a terrorist is orchestrating this vis a device called Pandora’s Box which is making satellites crash at will. And it is up to Xander Cage who is living anonymously and his team to save the world. The action is relentless, the lines are corny, but there is no heart to the story.

Main Review:

Action movies should have more than just a line of plot to keep the audience interested. Guns, girls and muscles can only keep you interested for so long. And boy! There’s a lot of that in the movie. Not that the action is boring, but that’s all there to the film. And somewhere between awe of the stunts Vin Diesel can perform and jaw-dropping amazement at the length of Deepika Padukone’s boots, you are hooked.

So with this movie we see a Bollywood actor in a Hollywood film. The news brought groans from everyone: Would the role be as silly as Anil Kapoor’s in Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol? Or would it be a blink and miss Irrfan Khan in Jurassic World? Thankfully when you see her in action you can only nod your head in approval. It is a role where she is a part of an action team. And that’s good, because she’s not just an ornament. We liked that.

Vin Diesel is himself. Swagger and muscle and he know the audience is with him the moment he jumps off the TV tower and skis down the jungle slopes and then skateboards downhill…You don’t know why you are holding your breath and when you know why he steals the contraption from the TV tower, you go, ‘Awwwww! So Sweet!’ The stunts he performs maybe performed in front of a green screen and not real, people will say. But he makes it believable, and that is good enough for audience hungry for action that’s not about a superhero. Donnie Yen is amazing too. He kicks and punches his way through a whole lot of baddies and you find yourself kicking and punching in your head too.

The set action pieces for the team towards the end are brilliantly choreographed. Especially the one set piece between Ruby Rose and Deepika Padukone. The talent that is Tony Ja, is a little underutilized, as are the other rough chaps in the team.

Alas, when the action is so obvious, the main villain is predictable too. If only there had been a little more to the story, than just corny lines, this film would have been very, very good.