All Copies of xXx 2: STATE OF THE UNION Should Be Frozen In Liquid Nitrogen and Dropped in the Marianas Trench

I'm faced with a bit of a problem.

And that problem is that xXx 2: STATE OF THE UNION is completely indefensible. It is possibly the laziest film I have ever had the displeasure to sit through, insipid and insulting and seemingly scripted by a Mad Libs: Action Films book. Some of you might be saying, "But Brandon, what were you expecting? The film was advertised as being 'from the director of DIE ANOTHER DAY' and starred Ice Cube and the chick from SPECIES III." Sadly, the film performs below even these low expectations - I've seen SPECIES III and even that DTV abomination shows a stronger grasp of basic film conventions than the drivel on display here.

I won't waste more print devoted to a discussion of this film's problems, as that would be a complete waste of everyone's time, most of all yours, but instead talk about the real problem this film poses to the world - the fact that there is no way I can keep it on my shelf where it will be visible to all my friends. I won't even be able to defend it on ironic grounds, as I do when people note that I keep SPECIES I, II, and III on prominent display.

On one hand, I can't wait to get rid of it at my local BMV, where it will hopefully languish on the store shelf, until a thick unscrubable layer of dust and/or sun damage makes it unsellable and some hipster store clerk is forced to throw it in the trash. But what if some other poor shmo like myself picked it up and thought, "Hey, Ice Cube! I bet this is better than TORQUE!" and paid upwards of $5 for it, only to discover that TORQUE looks like Francis Ford Coppola's version of THE FAST & THE FURIOUS when compared to this shit. Side note: TORQUE is also on prominent display in my shelf, for which I will make no apologies.

No, if anything, I need to contain the virus that is xXx: STATE OF THE UNION. I'd love to make some grandiose demonstration of my hatred, like burning it with a blowtorch and throwing it's flaming ruins off my balcony, but that would be to overstate it's evil. People would wonder what compelled me to make such a statement, and possibly feel intrigued to rent it. I can't make this film a martyr. No, what this film needs is a nice quiet abortion, something that will pass quietly into the night and then never be seen again. Like if Michael Bay made a remake of ROSEMARY'S BABY where Rosemary takes the day-after-pill after realizing she was raped in some frenetically-filmed Satanic ritual.

And so I put xXx: STATE OF THE UNION into my Drawer of Shame. My Drawer of Shame is a sacred shrine to the stupidities of my youth, a humbling reminder of things I wasted money on, like my ill-advised 2005 purchase of James Blunt's "Back to Bedlam" or Three Days Grace's self-titled album. I keep these things so that I never get a big ego. Whenever I feel like a pretty cool dude, one look at Linkin Park's "Live in Texas" CD/DVD combo puts me right back in my place. And so xXx: STATE OF THE UNION will reside in good company, away from judging eyes. My only fear is that these horrible forces may some day congeal and form a sentient being.

I didn't like it much.