'xXx: The Return of Xander Cage' — Surprise Hit of 2017?

As Vin Diesel continues his hobby of digging up his late 90s and early 00s hits and resurrecting them, it can only be described as a natural turn of events that after the resurrection of Fast and Furious and Riddick, the next one was going to be xXx - set to be released in 2017 and probably the least popular of his three hit franchises that launched him into superstardom.

Although I have fairly strong nostalgic feelings towards the first xXx movie and it was a popular and financially successful movie, when it first came out in 2002, I also acknowledge that it is a relatively forgotten franchise that is tinted by a horrible sequel made in 2005. It has it's fan base (including me), I suppose, and thanks to Vin Diesel's immense popularity in recent years (after the resurrection of Fast and Furious), it's not like no one cares about it at all. But from general movie going audience's point of view, it doesn't seem like anything to look forward to. Thus promoting a fair question for anyone who has not seen the first film or is not a fan of Vin Diesel work: Why should I care? Well, there are a few reasons why it could be a positive surprise.

1. The first movie was actually pretty original...or at least endearingly stupid

OK, the second one (xXx: State of Union) was just a very bad movie but with a number of the key players not returning, it never really had a shot to be good. In case of the new movie set to come out next year, it is made clear that the inspiration will be whatever the first movie was...so, what was it?

Time has been kind to the first movie... by not being kind to it

Dear readers, may I start by sharing the premise of the original xXx movie with you: "A thrill seeking extreme sports enthusiast, stuntman and rebellious athlete-turned-reluctant spy for the National Security Agency who is sent on a dangerous mission to infiltrate a group of potential Russian terrorists in Central Europe"...

And the thing is, it actually, in it's own way, worked. The first movie manages to embrace that premise wholeheartedly and with a completely staright face, while at the same time being under no illusion of it's stupidity and just having fun with it. Credit where credit is due, it is actually a fairly tricky thing to pull off.

It delivers on the action and spectacle (minus some dated CGI) which is a bare minimum for a movie like that to get right. The action and the whole movie have their own distinctive feel with emphasis on extreme sports inspired stunts and heavy metal soundtrack.

Also, while nothing special and a bit stupid, the plot is not bad. It has a few decent twists, pacing is exellent and it manages to tell a pretty simple and easy to follow fast moving spy story that, at times, can be smarter than the premise suggests. Although, it could be argued that the smarter bits stand out because the rest of the movie is anything but ;) .

Furthermore, the premise is actually not that stupid. The idea of making a criminal infiltrate another criminal organization, to a certain degree, makes sense and movie just chooses to have fun with it. Add to that a surprisingly good bunch of sidecharacters led by ever brilliant Samuel L. Jackson and villains who, although not a lot more three dimensional than the dated CGI snow avalanche in the movie, are actually quite well realised and memorable.

Does that mean it is good? Well, objectively, not so much, but it is not pretentious and it is original in it's own way. It is, on many levels, a product of it's time and for better or worse, a movie like that just wouldn't be made nowadays.

That can be taken both as a bad and a good thing. Mainly it is a good thing because it is an indication that the standard for action/spy movies has raised considerably since 2002 and I am happy about that. Yet, call me crazy, but I kind of miss that sincere but ambitious stupidity of late 90s and early 00s spy movies in some aspects.

To sum up, when watching this movie right now with it's focus on stupid yet inventive premise, one has to admit that it has it's own distinctive feel and identity. How much of it's identity is just a product of it's time and how much is actually original thinking, is another question, but as long as it creates it's own special feel, it doesn't really matter.

Xander Cage is actually a pretty well drawn out character

When a movie is called "Return of Xander Cage", obviously, the question is whether it is a welcome return.

The thing is, if we take Vin Diesel's three most famous roles - Dominic Toretto, Riddick and Xander Cage, it is quite easy to put them under the category of "big bald muscled action man". However, although I am not arguing that that difference between these three roles make Diesel look like an amazing chameleon like thespian, they are actually quite different from each other if you are familiar with them.

The character of Xander Cage has a quite good balance of being a reluctant hero with heart in the right place without making it look too cheesy and unnatural. The movie establishes his personality and sense of humor surprisingly well and the character can still be taken seriously... to an extent. Oh, and he also goes to a bar full of Russian terrorists and orders a cranberry juice, which is obviously a sign of a true badass ;).

Reason nr 2. Vin Diesel's "book of franchise resurrection" is already being applyed

As I wrote in a previous article, like his recent movies or not, but Vin Diesel is exellent at understanding how to resurrect a franchise (of course with a help of a good creative team). It is clear that he is applying his tricks for the new xXx movie as well. The tricks in question are:

1. understand what made the first movie great and use this knowledge

To sum up, what was said before, among the original xXx movie's advantages were, enthusiastically stupid premise and plot that the movie embraced, had fun and actually did a few smart things with, surprisingly good lead and side characters, and distinctive action and sound.

As the title suggests, Vin Diesel does indeed retrun as Xander Cage, Samuel L. Jackson returns as Augustus Gibbons and the extreme sport inspired stunts with the first movie's style of soundtrack are said to be in it as well.

The premise?..."Extreme athlete turned government operative Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) comes out of self-imposed exile, thought to be long dead, and is set on a collision course with deadly alpha warrior Xiang (Donnie Yen) and his team in a race to recover a sinister and seemingly unstoppable weapon known as Pandora’s Box. Recruiting an all-new group of thrill-seeking cohorts, Xander finds himself enmeshed in a deadly conspiracy that points to collusion at the highest levels of world governments."

Seems to have the same enthusiatic silliness to it. That means that the creators of the new movie understand what what were the strong (or endearingly stupid) points of the first movie.

2. It is gonna be a team effort

One of the reasons why Fast and Furious franchise rocketed into new heights of popularity was it's diverse cast and Diesel knowingly relinquishing some of his limelight in order to have a fully functioning team as the main focus. As the premise suggests, it is indeed going to be about a team in the upcoming xXx movie. Why is it good? Well granted that you get right people with right chemistry, this alone can carry a movie even if it falls flat on some other departments.

So, the cast? Among the cast, adding to returnees Diesel and Jackson, are Donnie Yen and Tony Jaa from Hong Kong and Thailand martial arts movies backround respectively, Deepika Padukone from Bollywood backround, Rory Mcann form Game of Thrones, to name a few from a long list of actors with a very different backround.

Of course, it might not come together with that cast, but it does look exciting on paper at least.

It can create it's own niche and differentiate itself from all of it's compeditors

When the original xXx came out, it had competiton. Mission: Impossible 2, Bourne Indentity and 007: Die Another Day. All of them putting their own spin on the spy genre.

Firstly lets sum up all of them up in an extremely brief way:

• Mission: Impossible 2 was a step in the wrong direction from it's strong predecessor and a fairly unoriginal Hollywood action flick.
• Die Another Day tried to renew the Bond formula while not daring to veer too far from it. It tried to be be gritty, and more outlandish at a same time, making for a very uneven movie. (still, love it though...power of nostalgia)
• Bourne Identity, on the other hand, revolutionized the spy genre with it's empahsis on starigthforward, complex, intensely fast moving and gritty stroytelling. In fact, it is probably one of the biggest reasons why the two abovementioned franchises had to take a long look in the mirror.
• xXx, meanwhile, tried to go for a streetsmart spy by using a lot of the Bond formula but add "EXTREME!!!" edge to it and sort of create this anti Bond with Xander Cage. (Creators "subtly" hint at that intention by opening a movie with an unnamed Bond-esque agent being killed, demonstrating that a new "EXTREME!!!" breed of agents is needed ;) )

The thing to take from this little summary is that whatever it's merits were on an objective scale, it did manage to differentiate itself from it's competition and be on par with most of them in terms of quality of the storytelling (the Bourne movie being the only one that was clearly operating on another level in terms of the quality of storytelling).

That brings us to today.

xXx will once again have to differentiate itself form Mission: Impossible franchise, 007 franchise and Bourne franchise. And the newcomer - the Kingsman franchise.

But the this time around the competiton is much more serious. In the years since early 00s, all of these franchises have either heavily reinvented themselves, kept a steady quality or stepped things up with a new and fresh take to give them all huge numbers in the box office along with popularity and high critical acclaim. How can xXx fit into all of it this time around, since the competition has stepped things up considerably?

The key to becoming a surprise hit of 2017

What is special about xXx compared to it's competing franchises is, that it's roots are in early 00s and this is all the source material the series really has to take inspiration from. So when, I said before that time has been kind to it by not being kind to it, that's what I meant - It can be this unapologetic "blast form the past" and bring along that original, enthusiastic and endearing stupidity the first one had. However, at the same time, applying every trick in the book to make it reinvent itself for nowadays public. While in no way a sure bet, don't be too shocked when "xXx: The Return of Xander Cage" manages to spring a little surprise. ;)