Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.

Mr. Diesel? Superstardom is on the phone and wants to know if you’re busy next week.

Unlike Harold, I do not have a near-Pavlovian response to all things that explode all shiny and pretty. Michael Bay movies irritate me. I think Renny Harlin is a spastic twit. Jerry Bruckheimer has indeed created a “whole universe,” and it’s a ridiculous one. The modern action movie in Hollywood depresses me.

What draws me into an action film... and I’m talking about a pure slice of visceral impact, that mood you get into where you want to get the pulse going... is character. I’ll overlook ridiculous plot devices as long as I’m enjoying the characters I’m watching. I don’t ask much, either, before I’ll pledge my troth. I just don’t like being insulted.

When I first saw PITCH BLACK, it was in the screening rooms at USA Films in Beverly Hills. Middle of the afternoon. USA had picked the film up from Interscope, but the word Harry and I kept hearing was that everyone disliked the picture, that it was going to go to video, that no one got it. One publicist who wasn’t even working on the film mentioned to us on the set of THE HOLLOW MAN that he had seen the film and loved it, and he pressed us to see it. “I know I can get them to screen it for you,” he said.

Sitting next to Harry in that screening room, just the two of us watching this thing, having no idea what to expect, I had one of those great movie experiences, where you’re surprised by something and just won over completely. David Twohy’s film isn’t some blindingly original mindbender or some splashy artistic experiment. It’s not a film for the ages. But it’s a smart, tough little thriller with a great hook and a charismatic lead. I kept waiting for the film to derail. There had to be a reason it was languishing on the shelf. There had to be something wrong with it. Right?

It never happened. I never found myself derailed. I had a great time with it. Y’see, I completely bought into Riddick. I like antiheroes. One of my particular film fetishes is the archetypes played by Clint Eastwood in the Sergio Leone films. The total fucking bastard played as the only one you can trust. Toshiro Mifune... same thing. Steve McQueen... the best. I’ll be the first to admit it... my action heroes weren’t Arnie and Sly, with a few notable exceptions. Those guys made their classics, but I never felt they were consistent or even aiming at making great films. They were ‘80s stars. They were product. Their great films came as the result of working with particular artists (James Cameron, John McTiernan, John Avildsen, George Cosmatos) at particular moments (PREDATOR, the TERMINATOR films, TRUE LIES, the original ROCKY, FIRST BLOOD and RAMBO). And the ‘90s... dear god... don’t get me started. Sure, Chow Yun-Fat and Jet Li and Jackie Chan and other Asian stars made inroads into the American mainstream, but how many homegrown action stars were there? Brandon Lee’s death left a distinct hole in the industry. He was poised to be huge, I still believe, and there was no one to step up in his stead.

To me, PITCH BLACK was the promise of something to come. PITCH BLACK was a vehicle to prove Vin Diesel’s viability as an action star. When he guested at the first Butt-Numb-A-Thon, the crowd went wild, having just seen PITCH BLACK without any precursor. It hit them the same way it hit Harry and myself. Vin was great with the crowd, too, staying for almost two hours to pose for photos and hang out in the lobby and chat. He enjoyed the hell out of the evening, as did everyone there, and when we ran into him at the GREEN MILE premiere, it was a blast. He was still looking for his next project at that point, and just talking to him about the sort of things he was looking to do, it was obvious that Vin wanted to be that guy, that next action hero. He saw it clearly.

Now, nearly three years later, here we are. And XXX is exactly the film it needs to be.

That may sound like faint praise, but it’s far from it. In fact, I think it’s a minor miracle that XXX is so much fun. I wasn’t a fan of THE FAST & THE FURIOUS last year. Hell, I didn’t like the film when it was called POINT BREAK, so why would I like a remake?

I haven’t liked any of Rob Cohen’s films, come to think of it. THE SKULLS? DAYLIGHT? DRAGONHEART? Even DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY struck me as a good performance trapped in a weak TV movie. So I wasn’t terribly optimistic that I would feel differently about XXX.

But I do.

Oh, man, do I.

If I was 15 years old, this would be the coolest film I ever saw.

This is a big bag of goofy, and I mean that in a good way. Xander Cage is absolutely absurd from the opening frame of the film. He’s completely cartoonish. He’s the exaggerated market research friendly version of an Extreme Sports legend, a guy who “never sold out,” a guy who pulls exaggerated stunts to stick it to “the man.” The entire set-up for this film made me laugh out loud.

And that’s in large part because it looks like it made Vin Diesel laugh out loud, too.

He’s having a blast in this film. He struts through this movie like he can’t wait to get to whatever’s next. He’s kidnapped... several times actually... and put through a series of field tests by Agent Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) to determine if Xander’s worth sending into the field on an actual mission for the NSA, and Vin plays all of this material perfectly. He’s not nearly as bright as he thinks he is, and that’s part of the joke. You can’t compare Xander to James Bond (even though the film takes a few jabs at that franchise that are amusing, if obvious), because they approach things totally differently. Xander is all reaction, a hypercaffeinated hopped-up central nervous system with a flexible sense of morals. He’s not a thinking man. He’s brute force and dumb luck and tongue firmly in cheek.

I love spy movies. I really do. I love riffs on the spy movie formula. I just recently picked up both of James Coburn’s FLINT movies on DVD, and they’re so much fun. He’s got his own particular vibe, like some creepy kung-fu fighting praying mantis hipster wannabe, that makes those films work the same way Vin’s smiling musclehead fear junkie makes this film work. There are characters that show up in all of these films, conventions of the genre, and my love of this film is due in large part to the fact that Rich Wilkes seems to know that.

ALIAS has its variation on the Q character that shows up on a regular basis, and so does XXX in the form of Agent Toby Shavers (Michael Roof), who I thoroughly enjoyed as well. It’s an easy joke (he wants to be a stud out in the field the way Xander is), but it’s well-played. Jackson is great in his brief role, his slow burn used to proper effect at every turn. He’s our guide into the world of the movie, the guy who has to explain everything. Yes... Sam’s playing Basil Exposition, basically. And he’s good at it.

And then there’s Asia Argento. Yelena. Oh, man. She’s awesome Eurotrash, all garbage glamour and glower, as scary as she is sexy. She looks bruised, like she just got slapped around before they called “action.”

Oh... right... that reminds me. Action. This is, after all, an action movie.

Hooooooooly sheeeeeit. Someone kidnapped Rob Cohen’s brain and traded him up. This movie’s got at least three “best scenes in the film,” and every single set piece was distinct and entertaining in a different way. They really pay off Vin’s supposed extreme sports background, and although it’s a total “gimmick,” it’s a damn good one. It gives the film a distinct attitude and energy.

Dean Semler is a noted badass, with credits like DANCES WITH WOLVES and THE ROAD WARRIOR establishing him as a cinematographer to be reckoned with, and I’d give him some of the credit for helping Cohen really clean his action up here, and I’m sure editors Paul Rubell (BLADE), Joel Negron (SLEEPY HOLLOW) and Chris Lebenzon (TOP GUN, MIDNIGHT RUN) all played their part, too. Whoever deserves the credit, the alchemy of all these collaborators works well.

So often, people tell me to “turn my brain off” to enjoy a movie, or they talk about “guilty pleasures.” Screw that. It’s like you’re apologizing for liking something. I’m not guilty about digging XXX completely, and I didn’t turn my brain off once. It’s a film that knows full well what it’s doing at every point, and it aims to please in a big way. I surrendered to its charms, and I bet you will, too.