325 replies to this topic

[License To Kill]

Be cool to meet Lee Tamahori.

Yes it would. I'd compliment him for The Edge and promptly punch him in the ribs for the last Bond film.

I'd help

[M_Balje]

Taiser Trailer: http://www.sonypictu...ovies/triplex2/

The line: And the directer of Die Another Day,is in it...

[Double-Oh-Zero]

I just saw it yesterday in front of Blade: Trinity. Gah. It even included a clip of a LALD/TWINE-like speedboat stunt.

[Loomis]

Taiser Trailer: http://www.sonypictu...ovies/triplex2/

Oh, good grief, this looks awful.

I can't believe they used music from THE BOURNE IDENTITY in this trailer - just reminds me of how vastly superior the Bournes are to low-grade action dreck like XXX.

[Turn]

The original xXx looks like Bourne compared to this.

Well, they have to get one rapper turned actor action movie out there every year, so I guess this is it. The really sad part is actors like Samuel L. Jackson and Willem Dafoe slumming this way. Is there any more blatant typecasting than Dafoe as a villainous type these days, save maybe Brosnan as a suave thief/agent/hitman or Shirley McClain as a cranky old woman?

[Loomis]

Is there any more blatant typecasting than Dafoe as a villainous type these days, save maybe Brosnan as a suave thief/agent/hitman or Shirley McClain as a cranky old woman?

Er, maybe Sylvester Stallone as a washed-up and/or disgraced rescue worker (CLIFFHANGER, DAYLIGHT)/cop or FBI agent (DEMOLITON MAN, EYE SEE YOU)/sportsman (ROCKY V, DRIVEN)/whatever, so long as he's washed-up and/or disgraced.

I never expected XXX: STATE OF THE UNION to be a masterpiece, but, as seemingly one of the few Bond fans who loves DIE ANOTHER DAY, and as an admirer of Tamahori, I did hope and expect that it would be a considerable improvement over XXX. Judging by this trailer, it's even worse.

It's as though they deliberately set out to make the most cliched action movie trailer ever, and then decided to add insult to injury by using music from Bourne. The action looks bargain basement (at least the original has a few very impressive stunts, such as the bit where Xander Cage jumps out of a plane with a snowboard), and it's a fair bet that the performances and dialogue stink to high heaven. And this trailer looks at least 10 years out of date.

Yeah, I know it's only a trailer and not the finished film, but XXX: STATE OF THE UNION has definitely lost my few bucks, and I was one of the people prepared to give it a chance!

[Prav_007]

Whoa, this movie looks so BAD!! . My question is WHAT THE HECK WITH CASTING ICE CUBE!!! OH MY DAYS!! and Lee Tamahori, I thought that was funny when they show the title as the director of Die Another Day and then comes on Ice Cube in his white tuxedo. Its cheesy crap, Willem Dafoe and Sam Jackson are good castings but what the hell, ICE CUBE. Hugh Grant would have been a better casting. Good news for Bond and Bourne, xXx is outta the game.

[Prav_007]

Oh ya almost forget, that trailer revealed about half of that shallow-filled plot has to offer. Damn.

[Qwerty]

Eek.

[Von Hammerstein]

I freely admit that Vin Diesel's xXx is one my guilty pleasures. I dig that moive and all it's quirks, Diesel plays a great anti-hero and Marton Csokas as the bady guy was wonderful, the whole madman out to destroy the world plot was as good as some of the Bonds. But it was Diesel and Csokas that made the movie.

Ice Cube?!!! Good Grief!!! If I see this one at all it'll be for free on cable.

[Roebuck]

Two things make me hopefull.

1) There's Willam Dafoe.

2)The script (by the writer of the original xXx) has been given a re-write by Simon Kinberg who did the script for the new Doug Liman film, 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith'. That one's picking up some good word of mouth.

[Sam Fisher]

I think Ice Cube and Xibit was casted to get the African American populus interested, not a bad thing really.

[Loomis]

Yeah, I know it's only a trailer and not the finished film, but XXX: STATE OF THE UNION has definitely lost my few bucks, and I was one of the people prepared to give it a chance!

Hmmm.... maybe I'll check this out after all. I have a soft spot for Tamahori, and STATE OF THE UNION could be one of those "so bad it's good"/"guilty pleasure" movies by a director I admire who's "slumming it", like John McTiernan's ROLLERBALL.

And Samuel L. Jackson is always worth watching.

[terminus]

Well, for some reason, in the UK, XXX 2 is being advertised as XXX: The Next Level which somewhat confused me.

[trs007]

I'll go. I'm in the minority of people that enjoyed XXX and although this movie has such slim ties to the first (from what I've seen), it's still an action-spy flick and that'll get me there.

[Loomis]

Anyone here seen XXX: STATE OF THE UNION/THE NEXT LEVEL, then?

Worth it in any way, shape or form?

How does it compare to DIE ANOTHER DAY?

[Bond_Bishop]

I've seen it and it is not better than DAD (Well I really like DAD anyway, ) but it is much better than the first movie. It is entertaining but there are better brainless action movies.

[Roebuck]

Fairly average action movie, but Cube handled himself pretty well as the new xXx. The action sequences aren't a patch on the original. There's a prison break near the beginning that suggests this xXx is going to be a more low-tech, old school spy movie than the first. Sadly, Tamahori is soon piling on the poor quality CGI. By the finale it looks more like a video game cut-scene. There's also a vehicle chase inside an aircraft carrier's hanger deck that's been shot almost entirely in close up; any sense of the space their racing around in is totally lost. On the plus side, Jackson and Dafoe play off nicely against each other and bring a needed touch of class to the precedings.

[Loomis]

Thanks, Bond_Bishop and Roebuck. I was never a fan of XXX, but I have a strange (masochistic?) desire to rent XXX 2. Mainly because it's Tamahori.

I'm still quite surprised that he chose to do this after DIE ANOTHER DAY, rather than something more "prestigious", or even a more prestigious franchise sequel (like THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, perhaps).

I'm thinking that XXX 2 is a film I'll either turn off after 10 minutes, appalled by its sheer awfulness, or find an enjoyable "guilty pleasure".

[Quartermaster007]

xXx is an evil franchise created by evil people!

[Qwerty]

I'm thinking that XXX 2 is a film I'll either turn off after 10 minutes, appalled by its sheer awfulness, or find an enjoyable "guilty pleasure".

Have you seen it yet Loomis? (as since you last made this post naturally)

[Loomis]

I'm thinking that XXX 2 is a film I'll either turn off after 10 minutes, appalled by its sheer awfulness, or find an enjoyable "guilty pleasure".

Have you seen it yet Loomis? (as since you last made this post naturally)

Not yet, but I'll rent it as soon as I get the chance and give my verdict here.

[Qwerty]

Sounds good.

[Loomis]

Rented it today and gave it a whirl, but switched off after half an hour, unable to take any more. The first XXX is awful, but at least it kept me watching until the closing credits. The non-US title of this sequel is very apt: diabolically bad filmmaking taken to "the next level".

It's so bad as to make XXX look like THE BOURNE IDENTITY and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE II look like PULP FICTION. So dumb as to make the average episode of "The A-Team" look like a work of intellectual European auteur cinema. Words fail me. It's utterly unexciting and unfunny (and its failure to be funny surely does not come from lack of trying, given the acres of so-called comic relief crammed in at every turn). The script is dire, and the performances as rotten as any I've ever seen. The film is inept in every respect, to the point where I wondered whether it was an intentional mickey-take. I kept expecting the camera to pull back and reveal Ricky Gervais dressed as a Marine and imploring Samuel L. Jackson for a speaking part - in other words, that it would all be revealed as an episode of "Extras" about the making of a big, brainless Hollywood franchise entry. No such luck, but it would have been an excellent explanation of why every single action movie cliche is present and correct.

What's amazing is just how cheap and tacky it looks. We have a major studio (Sony), the director and the cinematographer of the last Bond flick, and a budget larger than that of THE BOURNE SUPREMACY. Yet STATE OF THE UNION/THE NEXT LEVEL looks as comically shoddy as a bargain basement, straight-to-video Italian ripoff of RAMBO from the 1980s. The special effects are pathetic, and the action scenes poorly-done and over long before one has any kind of chance to "get into" them (Tamahori and co. must have felt that audiences for this sequel would have attention spans of goldfish - probably why this film moves at a speed that isn't "fast-paced" but just plain insane). Zero suspense. Zero thrills.

Absolutely abysmal.

[Turn]

Rented it today and gave it a whirl, but switched off after half an hour, unable to take any more. The first XXX is awful, but at least it kept me watching until the closing credits. The non-US title of this sequel is very apt: diabolically bad filmmaking taken to "the next level".

It's so bad as to make XXX look like THE BOURNE IDENTITY and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE II look like PULP FICTION. So dumb as to make the average episode of "The A-Team" look like a work of intellectual European auteur cinema. Words fail me. It's utterly unexciting and unfunny (and its failure to be funny surely does not come from lack of trying, given the acres of so-called comic relief crammed in at every turn). The script is dire, and the performances as rotten as any I've ever seen. The film is inept in every respect, to the point where I wondered whether it was an intentional mickey-take. I kept expecting the camera to pull back and reveal Ricky Gervais dressed as a Marine and imploring Samuel L. Jackson for a speaking part - in other words, that it would all be revealed as an episode of "Extras" about the making of a big, brainless Hollywood franchise entry. No such luck, but it would have been an excellent explanation of why every single action movie cliche is present and correct.

What's amazing is just how cheap and tacky it looks. We have a major studio (Sony), the director and the cinematographer of the last Bond flick, and a budget larger than that of THE BOURNE SUPREMACY. Yet STATE OF THE UNION/THE NEXT LEVEL looks as comically shoddy as a bargain basement, straight-to-video Italian ripoff of RAMBO from the 1980s. The special effects are pathetic, and the action scenes poorly-done and over long before one has any kind of chance to "get into" them (Tamahori and co. must have felt that audiences for this sequel would have attention spans of goldfish - probably why this film moves at a speed that isn't "fast-paced" but just plain insane). Zero suspense. Zero thrills.

Absolutely abysmal.

Don't tell us you didn't see this one coming.

[Qwerty]

I'm thinking that XXX 2 is a film I'll either turn off after 10 minutes, appalled by its sheer awfulness, or find an enjoyable "guilty pleasure".

Have you seen it yet Loomis? (as since you last made this post naturally)

Not yet, but I'll rent it as soon as I get the chance and give my verdict here.

Rented it today and gave it a whirl, but switched off after half an hour, unable to take any more. The first XXX is awful, but at least it kept me watching until the closing credits. The non-US title of this sequel is very apt: diabolically bad filmmaking taken to "the next level".

It's so bad as to make XXX look like THE BOURNE IDENTITY and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE II look like PULP FICTION. So dumb as to make the average episode of "The A-Team" look like a work of intellectual European auteur cinema. Words fail me. It's utterly unexciting and unfunny (and its failure to be funny surely does not come from lack of trying, given the acres of so-called comic relief crammed in at every turn). The script is dire, and the performances as rotten as any I've ever seen. The film is inept in every respect, to the point where I wondered whether it was an intentional mickey-take. I kept expecting the camera to pull back and reveal Ricky Gervais dressed as a Marine and imploring Samuel L. Jackson for a speaking part - in other words, that it would all be revealed as an episode of "Extras" about the making of a big, brainless Hollywood franchise entry. No such luck, but it would have been an excellent explanation of why every single action movie cliche is present and correct.

What's amazing is just how cheap and tacky it looks. We have a major studio (Sony), the director and the cinematographer of the last Bond flick, and a budget larger than that of THE BOURNE SUPREMACY. Yet STATE OF THE UNION/THE NEXT LEVEL looks as comically shoddy as a bargain basement, straight-to-video Italian ripoff of RAMBO from the 1980s. The special effects are pathetic, and the action scenes poorly-done and over long before one has any kind of chance to "get into" them (Tamahori and co. must have felt that audiences for this sequel would have attention spans of goldfish - probably why this film moves at a speed that isn't "fast-paced" but just plain insane). Zero suspense. Zero thrills.

Absolutely abysmal.

Not too surprising based on what we heard before. Statements like the following: "What's amazing is just how cheap and tacky it looks. We have a major studio (Sony), the director and the cinematographer of the last Bond flick, and a budget larger than that of THE BOURNE SUPREMACY," are just embarrassing for this film.

[Loomis]

Don't tell us you didn't see this one coming.

I never expected a great film, but, seriously, I did think it might have been considerably better. As y'all know, I love DIE ANOTHER DAY and am an admirer of Tamahori (although my faith in him has certainly been shaken now). I thought it reasonable to hope for a mindless-but-nonetheless-thoroughly-entertaining action flick, or at least a "guilty pleasure" a la McTiernan's ROLLERBALL (and there's another director I have a lot of time for). After all, I'd paid to rent XXX 2 and wanted to enjoy it. But I just didn't find it enjoyable in any way, shape or form. Not even on a so-bad-it's-good level. Which might have been the case had it been made for peanuts and by people who were at least trying their best to work their way up, but considering the talent and money involved XXX 2 just comes across as pathetic and tedious, not endearingly awful. It's simply a bad and boring (expensive) waste of celluloid, or digital video, or whatever it is they shoot on these days.