XXX 2002

Bruce Newman, San Jose Mercury News: A movie that feels as if it has been assembled using census charts and market research conducted at Taco Bell. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: The racially ambiguous Diesel cuts a fine action figure. He has the glacial swagger left over from his bouncer days and looks as if he's been bench-pressing Sylvester Stallone since he was 12. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: The harder XXX strives to be hip, the lamer it looks. Read more

Charles Savage, Miami Herald: This is a movie that wants to do nothing more than show its hero blowing things up, punching bad guys and wooing PG-13 hotties. For what it is trying to be, it's good. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: [U]nrelentingly stupid. Read more

Robert K. Elder, Chicago Tribune: Suit #1: Sold. OK, set up the product placements. Call Motorola for a video cell phone doohickey. And have MTV play preview programs and ads on the hour. Read more

Elvis Mitchell, New York Times: This is perhaps the silliest movie ever to certify the arrival of a major star since, well, The Fast and the Furious, the last Cohen-Diesel collaboration. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: It's hard to tell with all the crashing and banging where the salesmanship ends and the movie begins. Read more

Ted Fry, Seattle Times: For all the high-end stunts and tricked-out production design, much of the action comes off as curiously flat. Read more

Scott Steinberg, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Every defiantly over-the-top action scene -- from high-stakes car chases to fearsome drug busts -- seizes your adrenal gland and milks it like an epileptic farmer. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: More busy than exciting, more frantic than involving, more chaotic than entertaining. Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: For all its alleged youthful fire, XXX is no less subservient to Bond's tired formula of guns, girls and gadgets while brandishing a new action hero. Read more

Paul Clinton (CNN.com), CNN.com: Move over, James Bond: Vin Diesel's in the house. Read more

Steven Rosen, Denver Post: The pretensions -- and disposable story -- sink the movie. And Diesel isn't the actor to save it. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Even in the summertime, the most restless young audience deserves the dignity of an action hero motivated by something more than franchise possibilities. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Ultimately, this is a movie as generic as its title. Read more

Gary Dowell, Dallas Morning News: A hoot to watch so long as you don't pick at the plot holes or forget to suspend your disbelief. Read more

Paul Malcolm, L.A. Weekly: Diesel smolders as bad boy with spy toys Xander Cage. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: This is action without tension, explosions without the concussion. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: In its own punk way, XXX is as good as a good Bond movie, and that's saying something. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: In XXX, Diesel is that rare creature -- an action hero with table manners, and one who proves that elegance is more than tattoo deep. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Its scale and audacity, its brashness and vulgarity make it a pleasure from beginning to end -- or a guilty pleasure for those prone to guilt. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Rather than 'a new breed of secret agent,' the makers of XXX have created a dumber version of Rambo, and I have just one question: YYY? Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: If Dubya and Dick Cheney had made their very own post-9/11 patriotic propaganda movie for the teens they need as globalisation fodder, then this would be it. Read more

Mike Clark, USA Today: The director piles on one expensive but impersonal action scene after another. Read more

Robert Koehler, Variety: The first of doubtless several editions of XXX is ideally tuned to young guys with short attention spans who fantasize alternately about big guns and hot babes. Read more

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: Plotted like a first-person shooter but with vast savannahs of unidimensional exposition between the tar-oil fireballs and improbable stunts. Read more