Only now does it occur to me... THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT

Only now does it occur to me...  a few things.  First, despite the absence of a "3" in the title (and to think it so easily could have been called "3 FAST 3 FURIOUS"), as the third film in the franchise this fits the bill of my "Good Things Come in Threes" series, though whether or not it qualifies as a "good thing" is open to debate.

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT is your typical "small-town American kid fucks up, gets sent to live in Tokyo" story, much maligned for its dearth of connective tissue with the previous two films (Paul Walker was deemed "too old" and Vin Diesel only shows up for a cameo at the very end).
 
Welcome to the Xander Zone?

The whole affair feels very "90s" despite being made in 2006, a notion that is in no way dispelled by the presence of Zachery Ty Bryan from HOME IMPROVEMENT.  I sort of approve of this.

Sadly, he does not use "it's tool time!" as a one-liner, despite it being contextually appropriate.

There's not a great deal to say:  L'il Bow Wow (née Shad Moss) was much more likable than I anticipated,

L'il Bow Wow... who knew?

and he shares this movie's MVP slot with the impressively nonchalant Sung Kang, in a performance so cool, they shoehorned his character into subsequent films.

Pictured here taking notes from...

...Alain Delon and Jean-Pierre Melville in LE SAMOURAÏ.

Unfortunately, these two play sidekicks to 'poor man's Paul Walker' Lucas Black, who was even more annoying than I anticipated (I kept waiting for the Yakuza to dismember him... alas),
 
and there's a late in the game appearance by Sonny Chiba (THE STREETFIGHTER himself!––and more recently notorious for playing 'Hattori Hanzo' in KILL BILL)

which means that dismemberment needn't have been removed from the table.  Anyway.  TOKYO DRIFT, ladies and gentlemen.

Film Review: XXX (2002, Rob Cohen)

Stars: XXX of 5.
Running Time: 124 minutes.

Tag-line: "A New Breed of Secret Agent."

Notable Cast or Crew: Starring Vin Diesel (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, PITCH BLACK), Asia Argento (LAND OF THE DEAD, TRAUMA), Marton Csokas (THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS), Samuel L. Jackson (PULP FICTION, UNBREAKABLE), Danny Trejo (DESPERADO, MACHETE), Thomas Ian Griffith (VAMPIRES, BEHIND ENEMY LINES), Eve (BARBERSHOP, THE WOODSMAN), and Tony Hawk.  Music by Randy Edelman (KINDERGARTEN COP, GHOSTBUSTERS II).  A soundtrack featuring Rammstein, Drowning Pool, Hatebreed, Joi, Flaw, Orbital, Mushroomhead, N.E.R.D., and other 90s bands you may have forgotten.

Best One-liner:  "Welcome to the Xander Zone."

The bastard child of James Bond and the X-treme sports fad, I had long avoided XXX, largely because it was not made during the 1980s, the golden period of cheesy action.  How foolish I was!  For a movie named after Vin Diesel's (fictional) tattoo and featuring a gang of villains named Anarchy 99, it is surprisingly palatable.

 I have no idea if I would have liked this as much if I'd seen it when it came out in 2002, but XXX has aged like a fine wine.  Or at least like a wine in comic strip that's served in a bottle marked "XXX."

From the director of THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR, DRAGONHEART, and DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY (Rob Cohen, the man who directs movies with the word 'Dragon' in the title more often than any comparable director), XXX is a spectacular undercover glimpse into the exclusive world of Eurotrash rave culture and high-level secret government operations.  Here are eight things I liked about it:

#1.  Asia Argento.

Cult, horror, and Italo-trash legend, she's essentially why I decided to watch this in the first place.  And yet this was her first foray into a major Hollywood film.  Why 2002?  Why XXX?  I figured it out: it's not that Asia had to wait around for Hollywood to find a trashy role; Hollywood had to wait until Asia decided they'd come up with a movie trashy enough to meet her rigorous trash standards.

Here she is, pretending to dance, on all the drugs.

Throughout, she maintains a consistency of performance, even (especially?) when her scene partner is the impressively wooden and hilariously flat Vin Diesel.

Don't scowl, Asia––he's still better than most of the cast of DRACULA 3D.

She's technically the "Bond girl," but in a movie this trashy, I say she's the star.


#2.  I mean, the opening scene is a Rammstein concert in a Euro-cathedral, where a man is assassinated and then crowd-surfed amid gouts of flame and other pyrotechnics.


They shot James Bond?

Later, there are more raves and tesla coils and techno music.

This picture could not exist without the subtitle "Techno Music Playing."

And cranberry club sodas.

Er, what––

#3.  Let's take a moment to talk about Vin Diesel and that wondrous jacket, shall we?

Yes, that furry-collared jacket (complete with a stylishly gaudy medallion) appears in roughly an entire third of the film, which leads me to believe they thought it was quite the trendy fashion statement.  It's nearly as great as Kramer's in that one SEINFELD episode where he's mistaken for a pimp.

Highest marks.  But who is Vin Diesel's Xander "xXx" Cage?"  Who is he really?  What makes him tick, besides cranberry sodas and furry collars and stilted line readings?

#4.  xXx is a crusading everyman.  He talks straight into little video cameras (addressing the nation?) and makes confessional rants about "The Man" and video games and explicit song lyrics.   He is an iconoclast, a man of letters, a philosopher.

But when it comes to solving problems, where Plato used the Socratic method, xXx uses... X-treme sports.  In fact, you could say that is the main thrust of the film is the use of X-treme sports to solve matters of international diplomacy and intrigue.

Whether it's X-treme Dirtbiking:

Thank God there happened to be an offroad crotchrocket lying around.

X-treme Rockclimbing:

"Get a grip!"

X-treme Para-snowboarding:


X-treme Regular Snowboarding:

"Nothing like fresh powder!" –an actual line in this sequence

X-treme Para-sailing:


And, my personal favorite, X-Treme Silver Platter:

which leads to X-Treme Silver Platter-Skateboarding:

Pictured: a typical European street scene.

And yet all of these personality traits make the following even more satisfying (albeit briefly):


#4.  Danny Trejo, with a machete, torturing Vin Diesel.

This is the sort of thing that's worth the price of admission, even if it only lasts for two minutes.  And look at Danny Trejo, boldly transitioning from "Prisoner" to "Guy with Machete."  But, oh, he does it well.


#5.  Potato Explosion!  This is the best potato-related car chase sequence explosion since the one in PET SEMATARY TWO.



"Now that's what I call a 'tater crater.'"  –not my proudest moment


#6.  Facial-scarred Sam Jackson phoning in––nay, mailing in––a performance as the 'M' of this universe, comparing Mr. Diesel to a snake


Technically, in this context, said 'snake' would be on a plane––and four years before they made the movie!

and delivering a hearty (and self-referential?) slow clap when Vin Diesel does what he didn't in PULP FICTION––kick the asses of some stick-up artists in a retro diner:

Not quite as good as the slow clap in ROCKY IV.

#7.  And continuing with the James Bond analogy, there's also a 'Q' scene, with all the requisite gadgets.  Though, when Vin Diesel tries out the X-ray binoculars,

it bears mentioning that he briefly becomes XXX: THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES.

#8.  The Xander Zone.

I think this is a good note to end on.  Amen.

–Sean Gill