This $346M Blockbuster Starring Vin Diesel Is the Worst Sequel Ever Made

Vin Diesel 's first work in Hollywood was the 1990 drama Awakenings. Vin played an orderly, did not get in the credits, but was able to be on the same set with Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.

Six years later, Vin Diesel shot his first and only feature-length movie – Strays. The drama about a drug dealer who grew up without a father, was generally well received by critics, but failed to become a hit.

After the grueling work on his own movie, Diesel decided to fully focus on his acting career. And we know what awaited the actor – big blockbusters. And not just Fast & Furious.

XXX Failed with The Very First Movie

At the time of its release, XXX was conceived as a launch pad for a new franchise capable of displacing the already tired Bond from the screens.

Unfortunately, the plan did not work out – the movie featured a few embarrassing plot twists and completely ridiculous, outdated plot moves such as the kidnapping of the American president.

Yes, thanks to the charisma of Vin Diesel, unusual tricks and a huge budget, the first movie was able to do well at the box office, but there was no sense of potential. And 15 years later, XXX was back.

XXX: Return of Xander Cage Was a Movie No One Needed

If Tom Cruise hadn't stolen the perfect subtitle for his second Jack Reacher a year before the release of XXX: Return of Xander Cage, the sequel might well have been called XXX: Never Go Back, simply because no one needed that movie.

To meet the demands of the viewers, you either have to build a franchise painstakingly, brick by brick, like Marvel, or you have to adapt the main character to each specific threat, as was the case with Kingsman – a crazy victim of total computerization needs a corresponding enemy-special-agent. Xander Cage came back with a different scheme – here I am, let's save the world again.

It's unclear from Return of Xander Cage why it should be Cage and his friends looking for the box of radio parts. Is it really necessary to swim underwater on a motorcycle, shoot up a Detroit skyscraper, or pulverize a Filipino village with machine-gun fire? Or is it all done to show Diesel's stunt doubles racing around on skateboards, water skis and paragliders?

XXX: Return of Xander Cage Doesn't Even Have an Epic Final Battle

The final battle says the most about the movie. In action movies of all levels, it is customary to leave a situation at the very finale in which the main characters, against colossal odds, do the impossible, tipping the scales in their favor with a personal feat. But Return of Xander Cage has none of that.

Vin Diesel's character dodges a few punches and escapes from a falling plane, and his friends are saved from death by a deus ex machina so clumsily shoehorned into the plot that it makes you want to cry. Behind some stunts and jumps, mostly absurd and funny, there is nothing left in this movie.