So you might have seen there’s a new xXx movie coming soon, with Vin Diesel returning to his third-most beloved role, extreme sports superspy Xander Cage. And to be fair, it looks pretty lit, with Diesel skiing trough a rain forest and flipping a motorbike over a wave. But if seems like a bit of a missed opportunity.
This is what should happen. Remember the plot of Austin Powers? Basically, secret agent gets cryogenically frozen in 1967, then revived in the late 90s, right? That’s what should have happened to Xander Cage. He was supposedly killed off-screen in Ice Cube-starring 2005 sequel xXx: State of the Union, but somehow he’s back for part three. Screw that. How it should go down is that on August 9, 2002 (the original release date of xXx), Xander Cage was frozen in suspended animation, just like Austin Powers was. And now, in 2016, when all else has failed, he is unfrozen, with nothing but a pair of cargo pants, a “If You Smell What The Rock Is Cooking” tank top, and an iPod Classic full of illegally downloaded Korn Mp3s on it to help save the day.
Xander Cage was meant to be a James Bond for the nu-metal, extreme sports, Jackass generation. The posters called him “A New Breed Of Secret Agent,” and the film even had a 007-a-like get killed off at a Rammstein show in the first five minutes. It’s the most early 2000s film ever made. It’s a Buzzfeed “You know you were a 00s kid if…” list in movie form. It’s beyond parody. It would be such a perfect concept. Plus, Vin Diesel has hardly aged since 2002.
It can start out with a Jason Bourne clone getting bumped off, and Samuel L Jackson’s NSA agent realising there’s only one man thy can turn to. Once he’s unfrozen, he has trouble getting to grips with the fact that his video-call-enabled Motorola flip pager is no longer a superspy gadget, but after that he’s ready to go into action. There’s intel that there’s an enemy agent at, oh, let’s say, a craft beer festival, and to go undercover he has to swap his tribal neck tatts and Oakleys for some stick & poke doodles and vintage Wayfarers. Xander Cage would ask for an energy drink at the craft beer festival. He hears a Drake song and wonders why all rappers are pussys now. He’s pissed that no-one is impressed with his extreme sports skills any more, and is confused by all these fashion people are wearing Thrasher magazine shirts. The scene ends with him snowboarding through a street food market on Clapham Common.
Aubrey Plaza would play his niece / NSA sidekick, and would tell him that his gay jokes are “problematic”. She’d also set up an Instagram account for him, and he wouldn’t get the concept of selfies. It would be hilarious. They’d definitely make a crack about MySpace. She’d teach him the phrase “don’t @ me” and he’d keep getting it wrong. It would be a running joke. She’d also keep threatening to spoil Revenge of the Sith for him if he doesn’t do what she tells him to.
Donald Trump would be the bad guy, obviously. Cage would wonder how this bumbling pop culture stalwart is now the bad guy. “Next you’re going to tell me Bill Cosby is evil!”, he’d crack. He’d probably say something along the lines of “In my day, the worst a President ever did was bang his intern! (Or be responsible for the deaths of a million Iraqis).” The movie would end with Cage storming the White House on a dirt bike to Limp Bizkit’s ‘Rollin’ with Tony Hawk skating by his side, and after he kills Trump, he’d say “I told you not to @ me.”
Don’t lie, you’d totally watch that. And if that works, I’ve also got a script about John McClane trying to figure out Pokemon Go.
