XXX : Thoughts?

[DoctorZ]

I was in Prague last week on vacation and actually visited some of the sites where xXx was filmed.  How they got everybody off the Charles Bridge is a wonder.  I watched the film w/Rifftrax in my hotel room.  It was almost a religious experience.  Mike Nelson IS the Infant of Prague!

[BBQ Platypus]

I just watched XXX yesterday for the first time.  I never saw the movie before because I don't care for Vin Diesel and the culture of "extreme" sports, so I figured I would hate the movie.  It turns out that i had a blast watching it.  I love big, dumb, loud action films, especially those that have the budgets to blow tons of crap up and have stuntmen throw their bodies all over the place!  Mike's riffs were perfect!  Vin Diesel is such a lunkhead, I was getting Reb Brown flashbacks watching this.  Great fun and a must see Rifftrax!  Of course they are all must see's!   

 

I agree.  XXX wasn't really a bad movie - it was just really, really stupid, in both the good and bad kind of ways.  It had a LOT of the bad, MTV-type stupid (aka "THE VERY BIG STUPID"), but just enough of the good ("Commando") kind of stupid to be watchable.  Hooray for stupid.  The riffs made this movie a LOT better, though.

[Hellcat]

I had a ball watching this one.  Every now and then I like to watch a dumb action movie, and XXX really filled the bill.  Mike did a super job.  I loved his shots at the wealthy anarchists, and his observation that you could apparently get away with anything in Prague.  The "yodel" especially cracked me up.


"His ability to bend slightly is paying HUGE dividends!"

[Famous Mortimer]

I didn't really care for the riffing on this one, and it's the weakest I've heard so far. So many of the riffs were him effectively saying "I'm middle aged and slightly dull and I'm just going to mock extreme sports, rock music and action movies". It was funny in places, but the film didn't really help him- not stupid enough to be properly funny and not exciting or coherent enough to be good.

[LadyKenobi]

It's so strange how subjective humor is-- because this one still stands as my all-time favorite RiffTrax.  I thought it was hilarious

[Minnesota]

^^ subjective indeed... cause I've yet to dislike a single rifftrax. 

Although I get somewhat disapointed if the "skit conversations" arent funny or whatever, but then I remember that the thing only cost me 3 bucks and the majority of the riffs are hilarious! 

XxX has alot of funny jokes, great rifftrack

[6079SmithW]

I didn't really care for the riffing on this one, and it's the weakest I've heard so far. So many of the riffs were him effectively saying "I'm middle aged and slightly dull and I'm just going to mock extreme sports, rock music and action movies". It was funny in places, but the film didn't really help him- not stupid enough to be properly funny and not exciting or coherent enough to be good.

I'm young and exciting, and I mock 'extreme' sports, rock music (when it's awful, awful Rammstein) and action movies (when they actively insult the audience) too. If the movie had been earnest in any way about putting those things in, I might think making fun of them was mean spirited, but every single bike jump, video game reference, and lick of music seemed either market tested by the same people who make Mountain Dew commercials (i.e. cynically trying to cash in on youth culture, not actually part of it) or a snide implied insult to the audience (the Third Man music seemed to be nothing so much as the filmmaker saying 'Haha, you don't get this.') Ugh.

Point Break was a bad movie, but I think the people behind it actually felt some enthusiasm for surfing or skydiving, and it shows. As a result, the movie is dumb but not insulting. This one was a slap in the damn face, and my only problem with the rifftrak is that I bought the DVD to go with it.

[Famous Mortimer]

I'm young and exciting, and I mock 'extreme' sports, rock music (when it's awful, awful Rammstein) and action movies (when they actively insult the audience) too. If the movie had been earnest in any way about putting those things in, I might think making fun of them was mean spirited, but every single bike jump, video game reference, and lick of music seemed either market tested by the same people who make Mountain Dew commercials (i.e. cynically trying to cash in on youth culture, not actually part of it) or a snide implied insult to the audience (the Third Man music seemed to be nothing so much as the filmmaker saying 'Haha, you don't get this.') Ugh.

Point Break was a bad movie, but I think the people behind it actually felt some enthusiasm for surfing or skydiving, and it shows. As a result, the movie is dumb but not insulting. This one was a slap in the damn face, and my only problem with the rifftrak is that I bought the DVD to go with it.

I like Rammstein a lot, as do several other people on this board judging by the thread. I've watched the occasional surfing and skateboarding video, and think extreme sports are no more or less annoying than any other comeptitive sport. But my point wasn't that he was specifically insulting those things in this film, his commentary gave the impression that no matter what the context, he would have thought those things were stupid and somehow beneath him. He spent several minutes insulting the gadget guy when the film made it perfectly clear he was an idiot, so it came out...well, not funny.

You've leapt to the wrong conclusion from what I wrote- or perhaps you can point out where I said the film was good. Criticising Mike's riffing on this particular film doesn't mean I thought the film was good, just means I didn't like his riffing. I very specifically said, in fact, that I didn't like the film. So your point is?

[6079SmithW]

I'm young and exciting, and I mock 'extreme' sports, rock music (when it's awful, awful Rammstein) and action movies (when they actively insult the audience) too. If the movie had been earnest in any way about putting those things in, I might think making fun of them was mean spirited, but every single bike jump, video game reference, and lick of music seemed either market tested by the same people who make Mountain Dew commercials (i.e. cynically trying to cash in on youth culture, not actually part of it) or a snide implied insult to the audience (the Third Man music seemed to be nothing so much as the filmmaker saying 'Haha, you don't get this.') Ugh.

Point Break was a bad movie, but I think the people behind it actually felt some enthusiasm for surfing or skydiving, and it shows. As a result, the movie is dumb but not insulting. This one was a slap in the damn face, and my only problem with the rifftrak is that I bought the DVD to go with it.

I like Rammstein a lot, as do several other people on this board judging by the thread. I've watched the occasional surfing and skateboarding video, and think extreme sports are no more or less annoying than any other comeptitive sport. But my point wasn't that he was specifically insulting those things in this film, his commentary gave the impression that no matter what the context, he would have thought those things were stupid and somehow beneath him. He spent several minutes insulting the gadget guy when the film made it perfectly clear he was an idiot, so it came out...well, not funny.

You've leapt to the wrong conclusion from what I wrote- or perhaps you can point out where I said the film was good. Criticising Mike's riffing on this particular film doesn't mean I thought the film was good, just means I didn't like his riffing. I very specifically said, in fact, that I didn't like the film. So your point is?

I don't think I said you thought the film was good.

Anyway, my point was that I think Mike was mocking the film's thin veneer of 'attitude' more than the activities portrayed, and I see no reason to assume that's he's a crotchety old man because of it.

[Just Some Guy]

I have to say that I didn't think XXX sucked.  It's not high cinema by any stretch and it certainly deserves to be mocked but it's not a bad movie for two reasons.

First, the complete lack of pretense that the film was anything more than excuse to showcase action scenes.  I hate it when action movies feel the need to justify their set pieces with a convoluted story that you can't help but think about and poke holes in.  Movies can't be all action sequences but if your film is a big, dumb action film then don't pretend to have a deep plot.  XXX's story was paper thin but because they didn't try to make it any deeper than "Terrorists with a weapon and they get an extreme sports dude to go after them" it flows well.

The second thing is that there really was a lot of fairly skilled stunt work in the movie.  The kind of stunt work that is going away and being replaced with bad CGI and/or rapid fire editing to cover up the fact that they can't compose anything for more than a second and half.  Take a very close look at pretty much any recent action scene where a "big" "star" is fighting; you'll see that it's composed of unconnected, extremely brief shots of people throwing a punch.  XXX had skilled stuntmen and editors putting those action scenes together and they look much better than most action films.

I don't think it's a great movie by any means and there's so much to make fun of even in the things that I thought were well done, but this isn't remotely one of the worst films around.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

The kind of stunt work that is going away and being replaced with bad CGI and/or rapid fire editing to cover up the fact that they can't compose anything for more than a second and half.  Take a very close look at pretty much any recent action scene where a "big" "star" is fighting; you'll see that it's composed of unconnected, extremely brief shots of people throwing a punch.  XXX had skilled stuntmen and editors putting those action scenes together and they look much better than most action films

holy crap your right, i didnt even think of that.   

[Hobbit]

The second thing is that there really was a lot of fairly skilled stunt work in the movie.  The kind of stunt work that is going away and being replaced with bad CGI and/or rapid fire editing to cover up the fact that they can't compose anything for more than a second and half.  Take a very close look at pretty much any recent action scene where a "big" "star" is fighting; you'll see that it's composed of unconnected, extremely brief shots of people throwing a punch.  XXX had skilled stuntmen and editors putting those action scenes together and they look much better than most action films.

You do have an excellent point.  That's also something I like about Lord of the Rings and the saber fights in Star Wars.  They were actually doing (most of) that crap rather than just cutting it really fast.  In fact, I hear that as the Star Wars movies wore on, they replaced a LOT of saber props.  In the original trilogy, they went for cheap, but in Episode III, they got carbon fiber saber props because they tempered steel ones would bend before the take was over.

[Hazzah]

I learned it takes FOREVER to take down a solar powered nuclear submarine.

Not to mention for being a submarine, it spent a lot of time above water.

Oh and Prague is NOT in South Carolina like I previously assumed.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

learned it takes FOREVER to take down a solar powered nuclear submarine

why exactly was the friggewn sub solar powered??  dont subs spend a lot of time wAAAAAAY below the surface away from the sun?