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XXX
"With a voice that sounds like gravel and biceps almost as big as
his self-regard, Mr. Diesel bestrides the screen like a giant. He's
all charisma and disaffection. And he manages to deliver every single
line as if he didn't care...Where 'XXX' does do something radical
is in having two men of color as catalysts for the action...seeing
Mr. Diesel and Mr. Jackson take center stage is heartening--and
truly the mark of a new era...'XXX' isn't exactly a movie--it's
more like the world's biggest reset button." --
Elvis Mitchell,
The New York Times
"Diesel--whose range of expression pushes Sylvester Stallone up closer
to John Gielgud on the evolutionary scale of thespians--is being courted
as a catch, a brand to invest in...People! People, wake up before
it's too late!...Triple-X/Vin Diesel is a golem, an automaton, a man
of clay! Run, run for your lives!...Even in the summertime, the most
restless young audience deserves the dignity of an action hero motivated
by something more than franchise possibilities. Movies like 'XXX'--a
big 000--don't deserve our $$$." --Lisa
Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly
"Diesel himself has the personality of a golem and a knack for dialogue
delivery that suggests recent oral surgery." --Michael
Atkinson, The Village Voice
"With a star named Vin Diesel and a title like 'XXX,' the last thing
you'd think this James-Bond-for-the-extreme-sports-generation enterprise
would do is take itself too seriously, but that seems to be what's
happened...fun is something this film surprisingly lacks...More busy
than exciting, more frantic than involving, more chaotic than entertaining,
'XXX' is primed to be the latest success story in Hollywood's 'Sensation
of the Week' sweepstakes, but that doesn't make it a happy experience."
--Kenneth Turan, The Los Angeles
Times
"In its own punk way, 'XXX' is as good as a good Bond movie, and that's
saying something...Diesel's gruff, monosyllabic style is refreshing
as a counterpoint to the gung-ho action, and the romantic scenes with
the beautiful Yelena consist of two kisses, because Xander has a world
to save...Is 'XXX' a threat to the Bond franchise? Not a threat so
much as a salute... Now all he has to work on is the kissing." --Roger
Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
"As junky as the movie is, you've gotta love its immersion in the
preposterous and its naive hope that street credibility and attitude,
along with a need for speed, are all that's really necessary in this
big, bad world...Everything in this sure-to-be-a-hit is outsize, beginning
with the trunklike neck that braces Diesel's big, bald head." -- Jami
Bernard, The New York Daily News
"...an often successful attempt to update the James Bond formula for
today's adolescent boys by pumping it up with steroids, adding tattoos
and hip music, and by divesting the secret agent hero of all that
posh, adult stuff like tuxedos, verbal dexterity and sexual promiscuity...the
dialogue of 'XXX' is often so atrocious, it's impossible to deliver
with anything resembling conviction...With no sex but lots of bone-crunching
violence, the movie seems aimed at an audience that's less interested
in girls than in gadgetry, explosions and steroidal machismo." --Jonathan
Foreman, The New York Post
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