XXX

For years, I have agitated for Vin Diesel to get the opportunity to star in a moronic, special effects-laden Hollywood blockbuster reminiscent of the Schwarzenegger films from the mid-80s, back when Schwarzenegger was just concerned with killing people and not with being lovable, except with such lovability as came from killing bad people. Now Vin Diesel has been given just such an opportunity in the new movie "XXX," and perhaps some of you will question how objective my review can be; after all, my credibility is at stake here. So it is with the utmost consideration and prudent judgment that I tell you now: Go, lovers of action cinema, see "XXX," and look upon my vindication.

Vin Diesel, I am happy to report, is in fact just that awesome. Sure, he has the obvious qualification of a physique so chiseled he doesn't look out of place in director Rob Cohen's statue montages. But various chemicals have given many men those bodies without giving them the capacity of carrying a film like this, as we have all seen in recent years. Vin Diesel (somehow, neither "Vin" nor "Diesel" sounds right as a short form) brings to the ass-kicking table a voice as deep and ominous as a bubbling tar pit, eyes that can both tell a joke and narrow with the utmost menace, a physicality that's both utterly agile and deceptively forceful, and a cool tattoo of three X's on the back of his neck.

More than that, he enjoys himself in the role. He did much of his own stunt work for the film, and audiences appreciate that. He delivers his action-hero punchlines with such aplomb that you'll be laughing and cheering despite yourself. And he never misses an opportunity to shoehorn a smart remark in there, with perfect timing and engaging smirk, just to get the audience on his good side. He is the very model of a modern action hero.

He can also act, but he doesn't need to for this film. No, this film concerns Vin Diesel as Xander Cage, an extreme-sports and rebellious-lifestyle enthusiast whose latest caper found him driving a state senator's Corvette off a bridge to protest said senator's stance against skateboarding, rap and video games. While this is certainly an action to be applauded, for it gives us the chance to see both reckless driving and reckless parachuting, it has the little complication of being illegal.

Here NSA agent Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson, underused) sees an opportunity. It seems that all the secret agents the NSA sends to try to infiltrate a shady ex-Russian army group known as Anarchy 99 get wasted, in the mortal sense, because they're too tuxeoed up to blend in with the angrily dressed nu-metal devotees. In short, the NSA needs to get more hardcore, and so Gibbons recruits Cage, promising amnesty for work. Before Cage leaves for the wonderfully photographable city of Prague, Gibbons makes sure to rechristen Cage as "XXX" in the manner of someone breaking a bottle of champagne against the hull of a newly launched series.

The details of XXX's penetration of Anarchy 99 are mostly lost in a hail of bullets, a furor of dangerous car-driving (a holdover from Cohen and Vin Diesel's last collaboration, "The Fast and the Furious"), a blizzard of extreme-sport stunts and a heaping helping of action-movie illogic. This movie credits one Weapons Coordinator and four Armory Assistants, and the producer's got their money's worth in this gaggle of guns and missiles. Every car that has so much as a fly land on it explodes. XXX and his gadgetry violate laws of physics repeatedly. The head of Anarchy 99, Yorgi (Marton Czokas), says that his comrades pointlessly died in 1999 fighting "Baltics" and not "Chechnyans," which is the only pointless death the facts would support, unless there was a war in Latvia someone didn't tell me about.

No matter; this is superb action filmmaking, filmmaking that doesn't let logic tell it not to have another stunt or another firefight or another cool implausible death-defying coincidence. Cohen is fast developing into one of the more reliable action directors out there. "The Fast and the Furious" showed promise, but here he outdoes himself with a riveting, astonishing scene in which XXX outraces an avalanche on a snowboard with baddies in snowmobiles on his tail. This is one of the few scenes in the film without music; all we hear for much of it is the sound of onrushing snow, and it is a terrifying sound indeed. (Credit for this, as well as for the rib-shaking explosions elsewhere, should no doubt be given to supervising sound editor Bruce Stambler and his crack crew.) Cohen also establishes and uses space effectively during gun battles and conveys the utter danger in all the stunts that XXX performs. Vin Diesel, of course, provides the glee.

I would be remiss not to mention Asia (AH-zee-uh) Argento in this review, seeing as how she simultaneously provides Vin Diesel with a love interest and contributes to the surplus of firearms in the film by carrying two on her at all times. And she is good-looking, in a heroin chick sort of way. But the weight of "XXX" is on the back of Vin Diesel, and he carries it like it was a blessing. It's suddenly an exciting time to be an action movie fan again, and "XXX" is a lot of the reason why.

SPECIAL CLASSICAL MUSIC EXPLANATORY NOTE

When XXX is called in by Gibbons so that Gibbons can inform his new star agent that there's no more mission, one might well expect that Gibbons is engaging in a little reverse psychology. This impression is futher reinforced for opera lovers by the fact that they are in the Prague opera house (its name escapes me right now) and two singers are practicing "Batti, batti o masetto," an aria from "Don Giovanni," which as the credits helpfully inform us was "written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte." This is an aria about how Zerlina (the singer) wants Don Giovanni to beat her so she can gain his love, if I remember correctly. I hesitate to speculate that Rob Cohen was actually aware of this, but it's there.

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