XXX: State Of The Union (2005)
aka: XXX 2

action thriller
directed by : Lee Tamahori
featuring : Ice Cube - Willem Dafoe - Scott Speedman - Peter Strauss - Samuel L.Jackson
running time : 1 hour 49 minutes
A new renegade fighter rises to defend the United States from an internal threat in this action thriller. Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L.Jackson) of the National Security Agency has successfully dealt with a number of threats to America's safety, but he faces a whole new challenge when he discovers a potent terrorist cell that has ties to the upper levels of the American military. Gibbons learns that George Deckert (willem Dafoe), the secretary of defense, has been training a secret military faction to stage a coup against the United States by kidnapping and assassinating the president of the United States (Peter Strauss). Convinced there's no one he can trust within his circle of operatives, Gibbons turns to Darius Stone (Ice Cube), currently serving time in a maximum security penitentiary. Stone once served with Gibbons in the Army, and also took part in a mutiny against Deckert; despite his reckless side, Gibbons is certain Stone's fearless nature and peerless fighting skills make him the one man who can take on Deckert and his troops. XXX: State Of The Union is the sequel to the 2002 hit XXX, though neither star Vin Diesel nor his character, Xander Cage, appear in this picture.

While nowhere near a classic, the first XXX film did put a spin on the secret agent movie that, while obviously marketed toward the young and extreme crowd, was still one big, ridiculous time at the movies, which makes it all the more difficult to accept the underwhelming thug machismo that populates XXX: State Of The Union. With very little to link it with the first movie and Diesel's character killed off in an added scene on the XXX DVD, the filmmakers decided to grab the few remaining characters and run off in a completely different direction that veers shockingly close to shoddy straight-to-video political action thrillers. The funny thing is that the movie does have a decidedly non-Conservative plot, but it's constantly hindered by its own blasé approach. First mistake Cube, in a completely miscast scenario wherein all he does is sneer and well, act like Cube. Jackson does an okay job as the burn-faced boss man, but sadly, there's nothing juicy in the role for him to sink his teeth into. Literally the only person that seems to be having fun here is the most annoying character in the flick none other than the white boy Q character (Michael Roof), who probably annoyed you the first time around in the last flick. All of that said, things do blow up real good in the movie, but there is not one pulse in any of the many shoot-'em-up scenes, nor does the movie follow the original's map of constantly upping the action ante until the last explosive second. Instead, you get a badly CG'd train sequence that doesn't fit a bit with the rest of the film and Dafoe cashing in his paycheck as the bad guy, something he accomplished with far more entertaining gonzo glee back with Speed 2: Cruise Control. There is something to be said for a group of black soldiers that saves the president after an overthrow attempt during State of the Union address, but the compliments for this sucker end there. If the series continues, audiences should hope that they go back to the formula that they were initially trying to riff on rather than settling for pure action tripe.