‘xXx: Return of Xander Cage’ Review: Vin Diesel Fails to Resuscitate Comatose Franchise

No one’s walking into an extreme-sports spy movie for the plot or characterization — neither of which this film pretends to care about for very long — but not even the grotesquely over-edited action sequences bother to hold up their end of the bargain.

In other words, if you were willing to endure listening to Vin Diesel speak in order to watch Donnie Yen and Tony Jaa perform electrifying feats of martial arts, dial down your expectations.

Director D.J. Caruso (“The Disappointments Room”) shreds up the action to a degree that Betty White probably could have played the Jaa role, given that almost no single shot lasts long enough to see a performer commit one complete move.

Return of Xander Cage' First Trailer Shows Vin Diesel Kicking Ass, Looking Dope

(And if “extreme sports” seems like a somewhat dated phrase, this movie does nothing to breathe new life into it.) He’s been laying low in the Dominican Republic since the first film, presumed dead and loving it.

The opening scene has him going to great lengths just to nick a satellite transmission of a soccer game for a fishing village (kids adore him!) and a few scenes later he’s satisfying a bevy of beautiful ladies in London (he’s a sex machine to all the chicks!); it’s an exhausting bit of demographic four-quadrant-ing.