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XXX: State of the Union

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Director
  
Genre
  
Action, Adventure, Crime

Duration
  

Country
  
4.2/10
IMDb

Music director
  
Marco Beltrami

Film series
  
xXx

Language
  
English

XXX: State of the Union Movie Poster

Writer
  
Rich Wilkes
,
Simon Kinberg

Release date
  
April 29, 2005 (2005-04-29)

Screenplay
  
Rich Wilkes, Simon Kinberg

Cast
  Ice Cube 
(Darius Stone / XXX), (Gen. George Octavius Deckert), Samuel L. Jackson (Agent Augustus Gibbons), Scott Speedman (Agent Kyle Steele),
Xzibit
(Zeke), (President Sandford)

Similar
  
Tagline
  
Prepare for the next level

Xxx state of the union trailer


xXx: State of the Union (released as xXx: The Next Level outside North America) is a 2005 American action film directed by Lee Tamahori and a sequel to the 2002 film xXx. It is the second installment of the xXx franchise, and was produced by Revolution Studios for Columbia Pictures.

Contents

XXX: State of the Union movie scene featuring Ice Cube as Lieutenant Darius Stone holding a rifle and wearing a black jacket.

 Vin Diesel and Rob Cohen, the lead actor and director of the original, had signed onto a sequel before the first film had opened, but both dropped out as Diesel disliked the script, while Cohen was busy making Stealth. Cohen remained as an executive producer. Ice Cube took over the lead role as the new xXx agent and Tamahori was brought in to direct, following the huge commercial success of the James Bond film Die Another Day, which he directed. Two different scripts were prepared for the film, and the one written by Simon Kinberg was selected; the other script featured a radically different plot. State of the Union was a Box-office bomb and it was criticized by reviewers, mainly for the performances, an illogical story, and overuse of CGI-based visual effects for most of the action sequences. It was followed by xXx: Return of Xander Cage in 2017.

XXX: State of the Union movie scene featuring Ice Cube as Lieutenant  Darius Stone and Scott Speedman as Agent Kyle Steele with guns.

Plot

XXX: State of the Union movie scene featuring Samuel Jackson as Agent Augustus Eugene Gibbons wearing black shirt.

In Virginia, a rancher discovers dead bodies on his farm and is then killed by assailants. The attackers use special explosives to break into an NSA bunker beneath the horse farm. Agent Augustus Gibbons fends off the attackers before barely escaping. Shavers, Gibbons' assistant, informs him that with the attack on the NSA bunker, "Bama" Cobb also had Xander Cage apparently killed in Bora Bora. To find a new substitute, Gibbons meets with Lieutenant Darius Stone, a former U.S Navy SEAL officer, who is currently serving 9 of his 20 years sentence in Leavenworth for disobeying orders and breaking the jaw of General Deckert, who is now the Secretary of Defense.

XXX: State of the Union movie scene featuring Ice Cube as Lieutenant Darius Stone wearing eyeglasses and a blue suit.

Gibbons helps Stone break out. Stone meets with Zeke, his old partner in crime, and Lola, his former girlfriend, who now runs an exotic car shop. Stone is instructed to recover a hard drive from the NSA bunker, and he manages to escape Agent Steele at the same time. Gibbons is attacked in his house and apparently killed, with Deckert and Sergeant Cobb covering up the plot. Stone meets up with Gibbons' contact, Mayweather, to get information. Stone goes to her safe house but is framed for the murder of 4-Star General Jack Pettibone; Mayweather is revealed to be involved.

XXX: State of the Union movie scene featuring Michael Roof as Agent Toby Lee Shavers wearing a blue shirt.

The police arrive, and Steele enters and talks to Stone, who escapes afterwards. Shavers hacks into the Pentagon to retrieve Deckert's plans. Stone infiltrates Deckert's troops aboard the USS Independence and discovers Gibbons is not dead, but being held prisoner. Stone's presence is alerted by Mayweather. Gibbons orders Stone to escape and leave him. After retrieving the plans, Stone gets into a tank and fights his way out of the ship. He learns that Deckert is planning a coup against President Sanford.

XXX: State of the Union movie scene featuring Scott Speedman as Agent Kyle Steele wearing a suit with a man on his front.

Stone makes contact with Steele and shows him the plans. When Steele notes that his plans are not clear proof, Stone leaves in frustration, to Steele's initial disbelief. During a conversation with Deckert, Steele realizes Stone was right. He finds Stone and tells him that Deckert wants to kill Sanford and his successors so he can take Sanford's place as President, in opposition to Sanford's current plans to dismantle various military branches to focus on foreign aid.

XXX: State of the Union movie scene, a woman with blonde hair.

Unable to trust legitimate law enforcement, Stone, Steele, and Shavers enlist the aid of Zeke and his crew. Together, they rob an 18-wheeler secretly hauling guns and equipment to the Department of Homeland Security under the guise of a cheese truck. They end up hijacking a tank, and Stone helps Steele infiltrate the Capitol building. A shootout starts, and Gibbons kills Mayweather. Deckert and Cobb abduct Sanford while he is making the State of the Union Address. They escape on a bullet train. Jackson arrives with a car, and Stone uses it to infiltrate the train. He engages and kills Cobb before engaging Deckert, while Steele extracts Sanford. Stone jumps out after Gibbons destroys the train, killing Deckert.

XXX: State of the Union movie scene featuring Scott Speedman as Agent Kyle Steele wearing white long sleeves with a tie.

The story is covered up, and Deckert is buried and branded as a hero. Sanford awards Steele and the unknown soldier (Stone) the Medal of Honor, and Stone goes back to his former lifestyle. In the now-rebuilt NSA Headquarters, Gibbons, Steele, and Shavers discuss what kind of person the next xXx agent should be. Gibbons says that he has the perfect candidate for the job.

Cast

  • Ice Cube as Darius Stone / xXx
  • Willem Dafoe as US Secretary of Defense, General George Deckert
  • Scott Speedman as NSA Agent Kyle Christopher Steele
  • Peter Strauss as US President James Sanford
  • Samuel L. Jackson as NSA Agent Augustus Eugene Gibbons
  • John G. Connolly as Sgt Alabama "Bama" Cobb
  • Xzibit as Zeke
  • Sunny Mabrey as Charlie Mayweather
  • Nona Gaye as Lola Jackson
  • Michael Roof as NSA Agent Toby Lee Shavers
  • Ramon De Ocampo as NSA Agent Meadows
  • Soundtrack

    A soundtrack containing hip hop and alternative rock was released on April 26, 2005, through Jive Records. It peaked at #117 on the Billboard 200, #48 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, and #5 on the Top Soundtracks chart.

    Box office

    xXx: State of the Union grossed $26.9 million in the United States and Canada and $44.2 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $71.1 million, against a production budget of $60 million.

    It opened on April 29, 2005 and grossed $12.7 million in its opening weekend, finishing third at the box office.

    Critical response

    Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 16%, based on 135 reviews, with an average rating of 3.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Even more absurd and implausible than the first xXx movie, State of the Union is less inspired and technically competent than its predecessor." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 37 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".

    Boo Allen of the Denton Record Chronicle called Ice Cube's xXx character "a chubby, surly, incomprehensible action hero". Brian Orndorf of FilmJerk.com compared watching the film to running "headfirst at top speed into a brick wall". David Hiltbrand of the Philadelphia Inquirer said "the plot swings between pathetically implausible and aggressively stupid". Some critics liked the film. Mack Bates of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel praised Ice Cube's "trademark charisma and street sensibility," while Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly called it "that rare B movie that’s rooted in gut-level stirrings of power and retaliation". Paul Arendt of the BBC said, "Viewed on its own trashy terms, it succeeds brilliantly".

    References

    XXX: State of the Union Wikipedia
    XXX: State of the Union IMDb XXX: State of the Union themoviedb.org


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