I went into this film expecting nothing more then a mindless action-adventure laced heavily with stunts and a plot little motre then enough to provide exucses for said stunts. What I ended up getting was a bit more. THe character of Xander is actually intelligent in a street-smarts sort of way, the dialogue is serviceable enough, and the plot is a bit more then anticipated.

They bill this as "Not your parents' Bond" when actuallly it's a near 90% complete James Boond rip-off. All the stunts promoted have been done first in other 007 films, some of the gadgets are there, a spy-car, and of course the required maniac trying to take over or change the world. In fact all they changed was to put in a fair sample of Metal Music and have our spy dressed in tattoos instead of a tux (in fact, at the bginning they have the usual spy stealing something, then escaping in a tux into a party... except that the party is a MEtal club, he gets spotted as the only one not freakishly dressed, then shot).

In the beginning I was a bit turned off by the whole Trash Rock atmosphere and their active attempt to try and not seem like a normal spy flick, ut it began to grow on me after they finally got going. In the end it was entertaining matinee fare. Vin Diesel has potential, is a good actor for certain types of roles, all he needs are good script writers. If you want to see 007's cruder brother and a new slant on Bond stunts, then go see XXX.