Mr. Floppy 06.08.08: xXx: State of the Union

Posted by Peter Bielik on 06.08.2008

A transvetite director and a fat rapper. A recipe for a hit?

I know I've been pretty irregular once again, but the semester is at it's end so it's once again exam-time. Last week, I wasn't even anywhere near a computer, but I got a B and a C so it certainly was worth missing out. On the other hand, my liver is aching a bit, because those 15 shots of Fernet Stock that I attacked it with certainly took no prisoners. :-)

Funny remarks about my alcoholism aside, I wanted to write about this movie for quite a long time. I think it dates all the way back to the Stealth-related Mr. Floppy. I just haven't gotten around to it as every time I was about to put this down, a different kind of film caught my attention. But now, I just have to get this burden off my chest.

I actually have to confess. This movie is a guilty pleasure of mine. It's bad, yes, but I found it entertaining. But don't tell anyone.



Year of the cock-up: 2005

Budget: $87,000,000

Domestic gross: $26,873,932

Foreign gross: $44,148,761

Worldwide gross: $71,022,693


After Sahara, Domino and the already mentioned Stealth, xXx: State of the Union is yet another film from the "successful" year of 2005 that I'm going to write about. Something must have been in the water, because I can't remember a year being so weak at box-office. Even the expected huge hits disappointed a bit (Batman Begins, Charlie and Chocolate Factory). Some of the year's flops were surprising, some were not. I don't think it's hard to figure out into which category this week's inductee belongs.

First xXx was a surprisingly big hit that caught Vin Diesel at the culmination point of his career (which has slowed down quite a bit since then- we'll see how well Babylon A.D. does). Aside from being commercially successful, the movie was a nice play on the secret agent formula, replacing the usual smooth and suave agent with a tattooed adrenaline-fueled muscle-head (but not a dumb one, mind you). And since James Bond films have done so well over the years, someone smart thought this is a great chance to start a brand new franchise, that's going to make money for years. Well, this idea was good in theory, but it started to die down right from the start.

As I said, xXx was the peak of Vin Diesel's popularity. Because of this, he had a plethora of projects to choose from and big Vin didn't feel like doing sequels to films that brought him to prominence, with The Fast and The Furious being the other one (ironically, Diesel's career is in dire need of a hit at this time, so he's going to appear in Fast and Furious the next year). He had much grander plans- an epic about Hannibal the Conqueror (which, after many delays, is slated to hit theaters in 2009) and his own sci-fi trilogy concentrating on Riddick, his break-out role from Pitch Black (this idea failed because the first film ,The Chronicles of Riddick, wasn't even able to recover it's big $100 million budget).
With Diesel occupied with different projects and thus being unable for the sequel, the producers had to decide whether to scrap the idea, or continue without their star. And reading this very article and knowing them for being money-grabbing whores, you guessed it, they decided to roll on.

Once again, the theory was pretty sound. I mean, James Bond was also portrayed by many actors, right? Well, we'll never know what would happen to Agent 007, if the first sequel involved George Lazenby. But we do know what happened when Vin Diesel was replaced by Ice Cube.

Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Ice Cube (even though I do think that's a pretty lame name). I don't know anything about his rap albums as I've never heard a single song from him. I've seen him in Are we there yet? and Barbershop. Even though I wouldn't call these films my favorites, they were passable and Cube did his job good enough. But in xXx, he somehow doesn't fit. It's actually funny that a former gangsta-rapper is more suited for simple family comedies than tough-guy action flicks, but stranger things have happened in this world.
Cube was an odd choice from multiple standpoints IMHO. He definitely can make the "bad ass" face at the flip of Superman's finger, but his body isn't actually up to the task. I'm not the one to drool over big muscular men (insert your own Vince McMahon joke here), but if I am to buy that a single guy can kick the collective asses of an entire army of bad-guys, well, his damn gut better not be hanging out like it's my uncle on a barbecue. That's the first mistake. The other is Ice Cube's questionable drawing power. His comedies did quite well in America, but made JACK SQUAT in the remaining parts of the globe. That means, when someone over in Europe or Asia hears the name Ice Cube, their reaction might look a little like this.


And the translation of those expressions--- "I'm not spending money on a damn ice cube."

Furthermore, it was obvious the producers overestimated Cube's drawing power even in the U.S. His comedies drew well probably because of the demographic they targeted (families and couples), while the group they wanted to attract for xXx (action hungry guys) probably wasn't as large as they thought.
But the movie's costume designer described Cube as being very "Steve Mcqueenish" in the film. I don't see the correlation, but then again, I'm not from the biz.

Apart from Ice Cube, the rest of the cast was pretty solid, although they were given absolutely NOTHING to work with. Samuel L. Jackson reprised his role from the first film (and collected a large paycheck), Willem Dafoe played a villain yet again (and collected a smaller, but still large enough paycheck) and Nona Gaye played Ice Cube's designated love interest. It was quite a revelation, hearing these actors speak about their roles. Willem Dafoe said, that he used Donald Rumsfeld as an inspiration for his performance. Well, and here I was thinking he was in it only for the money, while Dafoe has subtly incorporated a criticism of the Bush administration into his performance. Nona Gaye also described the depth of her character, saying it's powerful, confident and strong. And the character's name is Lola Jackson. Yup, power, confidence and strength all rolled into one, shiny, big cleavage-wearing package.


Because of the change in male leads, director Rob Cohen also decided to withdraw and he was replaced by Lee Tamahori (fresh off of huge success with Die Another Day). This also proved to be a wrong move as Die Another Day succeeded because it was part of a famous franchise, not because of its excellent direction (and it's the weakest of the Brosnan set of Bond films, if you ask me).

With Diesel out, so was about 70% of the original script. Ice Cube's character was supposed to be a mere sidekick to Diesel, but they obviously had to extend his participation in the plot. The screenwriters also wanted the sequel to be more domestic, which is why the entire plot takes place on American soil.

The movie was shot in 84 days, while Tamahori claims a movie like this certainly needed at least a 100. Maybe the tighter schedule didn't help, but the atmosphere was far from relaxed on the set. Tamahori also had big conflicts with Pierce Brosnan on the set of Die Another Day and Brosnan himself blasted Tamahori in interviews prior to the film's release (he stopped after it became a huge commercial success). From what I've found, the collaboration wasn't exactly smooth on the set of xXx: State of the Union either and the actors were very reserved in their director-oriented praise in the promotional materials.
It's also funny that Tamahori says that he likes his movies to always remain within reality. I find it funny because the car-chase inside the Ice Palace in Die Another Day (guess whose strikingly creative brain came up with that?) and almost EVERY action scene xXx: SoU are about as far from real world as you can get while still remaining on this planet.
Interesting thing is that the filmmakers did a pretty solid research regarding military equipment and how exactly does that stuff work. Not that the movie was supposed to be ultra-realistic (I mean- it's about a convict saving the world), but once you spend all the money on the research and all, it's sort-of counterproductive to just throw all realistic aspects of the story out of the window.

And because I'm in a playful mood, I'll also add a little something about the soundtrack. And once again, Lee Tamahori comes into play. He said he wanted the soundtrack to be a little more than just a generic hip-hop soundtrack. Thankfully, I have amazon.com at my disposal, so here I go, because when I watched the film, it wasn't exactly originality that filled my happy ears. So let's take a look. Who do we have here? J-Kwon, Ice Cube (OK, that was to be exected), Big Boi, Bone Crusher, Dirtbag, YoungBloodZ (with a very original and creative piece called "Dis Dat Block") and Chingy. All well-known for being progressive musicians. Tamahori, you better get off that pipe. Pronto.

This entire fun cost the studio $87 million. That's more than enough considering xXx: State of the Union is basically a Direct To Video B-movie that somehow made its way to theaters. It didn't make enough money to even cover its budget, so all plans for future sequels are obviously off. That's too bad. I wanted to see the one with Lorenzo Lamas and Michael Dudikoff in it. Now would that be a f'n action film or what?




You know, it's probably the producers deserving most of the blame for this, because it's them that hired a hack like Lee Tamahori, greenlighted a demented script and allowed a fat Ice Cube to be cast as the hero. But I don't like Lee Tamahori, so I'll go with him.

You see, this guy had everything at his disposal to have a great career. He directed a James Bond film that made huge money (although it sucked). Then, he could choose whatever he wanted to and he made this piece of crap. And then, in a miracle occurrence, he was given yet another big budget to spend on Next (yes, that's the one where Nicolas Cage sports a Tom Hanks in Da Vinci Code hairstyle). And that movie sucked and bombed too. I mean, it takes a real talent to screw-up so many chances to make at least a good film.

And as the final nail in the coffin that reads „Lee Tamahori's career", this guy got himself arrested, dressed as a woman, for allegedly soliciting in Los Angeles, by offering an undercover police officer oral sex.

I believe a remake of Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda would be the perfect fit for Mr. Tamahori as his next project. Points to those who get this. 

Since xXx: State of the Union was a Lee Tamahori vehicle I hereby award him the title Mr. Floppy.




And with this sexy picture that I hope will haunt your minds at least through the summer, I'm off.

BTW- suicide isn't an act of cowardice. I know that's beside the point, but somehow that's what's running through my head right now so I might as well add it here.


- Peter