Culture Vulture: XXX-shaken and stirred

WASHINGTON, Aug. 13 (UPI) -- Just in case you're wondering why Vin Diesel's new action-packed picture, "XXX," is called that, let me enlighten you. The first X stands for extreme sports, the next one is for extreme action (more of the same, really) and the final X is for extreme mediocrity. That, folks, is about all the enlightenment you are likely to get as far as this movie is concerned.

In reality though, Diesel's character, Xander Cage, an extremely rebellious sports-meister turned super-duper secret agent has most of his body covered in loud tattoos, including three large Xs on the back of his neck. Thus the nickname, "Triple X," as his handler (played by Samuel L. Jackson) likes to call him. Sort of like a 007 bathing in grunge and with a poor taste in clothes.

Indeed, this is James Bond on extreme steroids for hyper teenagers.

This age group needed their own spy hero. After all, we were served with a super 007-type film for tots with the recently-released "Spy Kids II" just last week (the original came out last year), so why not tap the lucrative teenage market at the height of the summer doldrums, when that important segment of the moviegoing population is bored to near tears, and fretting about going back to school in just a few weeks' time.

Today's teenagers are a far removed crowd from the clean-cut, rolled-up blue jeans and Tide-bleached white T-shirts of the Fonz's "Happy Days," or "American Graffiti." Back then, movie admission prices hovered somewhere around the 25 cent mark. Today's kids have a lot more money to spend, and spend it they will, even at $8-plus a seat, not to mention the ridiculous price of popcorn and the two drips of carbonated water they call something-cola that comes served on a mountain of ice cubes for the exorbitant price of only $5.25 (for the medium size).

Regardless, "XXX" brought in an estimated $46 million in its opening weekend -- not bad for a movie that should have, by all accounts, rated nothing more than a very low B-minus. In my book, this is definitely one to watch when it comes out on reruns next summer on cable, and on a night when there is nothing else to see. Believe me, you can wait and save a few bucks in the process.

The film is the classic story of the bad guy turned good -- of course, not of his own free will -- all in the national interest. This is a good time to wave the Red, White and Blue.

But it's really nothing we haven't seen before. It was done, far more eloquently one might add, and with greater style and pizzazz in the original 1990 Luc Besson's French version of "La Femme Nikita." It was then copied in 1993 -- almost celluloid frame for celluloid frame - for the English version starring Bridget Fonda, and directed by John Badham, and relabeled by Hollywood, "Point of no Return."

The two "Nikita" films were classics. It does not matter which version you select, they were both outstanding films, from the acting and the seat-gripping suspense, to the masterful directing and the fine cutting room editing work, right down to the special effects.

In contrast, the special effects in "XXX" makes it appear as if one is watching a Sony PlayStation animation game on a large screen. The interminable avalanche scene, for example, seems to come straight out of the video gaming world where teenagers today love to spend hours playing. Maybe this is what boosted the film's popularity, along with overly-loud heavy metal music sound track.

But this is the crowd the producers of "XXX" were most certainly aiming for. Glancing around the theatre last Friday night, it seemed as though half of the film's cast had walked off the set to watch themselves on the silver screen -- clothes, tattoos, spiked bracelets, hairdos and all.