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Vin Diesel Paved the Road to Fast X with xXx, Now Streaming on Peacock
The 2002 extreme sports spy-thriller xXx, now on Peacock, was an early preview of where the Fast & Furious movies would go.
Vin Diesel breaks the laws of physics while behind the wheel of a car in a movie with “X” in the title. If you assume we’re talking about Fast X, the latest installment in the Fast & Furious franchise, you’d be forgiven; it’s a new movie and it’s now available to watch on VOD, after all. But, no, that’s not actually the movie we’re talking about. Just over two decades before Fast X, there was xXx, a movie about eXtreme sports that was eXtremely of its time and remains eXtremely dumb (but, you know, in a good way).
Now streaming on Peacock, xXx (pronounced “Triple X,”) came out in 2002, just a year after Diesel starred in the first Fast & Furious movie. That first Fast movie, whose plot revolved around stealing DVD players, was remarkably grounded compared to the later installments where the Family is driving between skyscrapers, fighting submarines, and going to outer space. xXx, meanwhile, is almost an eerie preview of where the Fast movies would eventually go, as it’s over-the-top right from the start. There are sequences in xXx, like when Diesel jumps out of a car as it goes careening off the side of a bridge, that the Fast movies would almost directly recreate.
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In xXx, Diesel stars as Xander Cage, an extreme sports athlete and expert driver who is much less thoughtful, mature, and taciturn than the Fast Saga's Dominic Toretto. After Cage steals and destroys a senator’s car to protest against the senator’s anti-video game legislation (lol), he’s forcibly recruited by the National Security Agency for a dangerous mission that requires his special skills (and his attitude). NSA Agent Augustus Gibbons, played by Samuel L. Jackson, thinks that Cage will be able to infiltrate a Russian terrorist agency called Anarchy 99 — because Cage is also against “the man” and “authority,” y’know? And, in fact, Cage does actually get along fairly well with Yorgi, a disillusioned former Soviet soldier-turned-Anarchy 99’s leader. But, Cage doesn’t want to unleash a biological weapon on the world, and he also wants to get the girl, Yelena (Asia Argento), who may have secrets of her own.
It’s no spoiler to say that taking down Anarchy 99 involves some crazy stunts on Cage’s part, including parachuting out of a plane and snowboarding down a mountain, outrunning an avalanche in the process. He also has some James Bond-esque gadgets, though they lack the subtly or class of 007’s bag of tricks. That’s in part because Cage isn’t a classy British secret agent. He’s an adrenaline junkie who doesn’t like to play by the rules (because the rules are bullsh-t), but he does have a very strong moral code.
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There is something amazingly “early ‘00s” about xXx’s whole vibe. This was an era when the X-Games were as cool as they were ever going to be. Extreme sports were taking off in popularity, and xXx feels reverse-engineered to please this audience. It’s entertaining, but it feels somewhat forced right from the literal jump, whereas the Fast & Furious movies evolved more organically into comparable levels of action absurdity. Watching xXx is an uncanny trip back in time because the movie feels both dated and utterly contemporary. It’s a movie where Vin Diesel does extreme car stunts while nominally working with a government agency to fight terrorists, after all. Fast X and xXx are driving on the same amazing road.
xXx is now streaming on Peacock, along with The Fast and the Furious, Fast & Furious, Fast Five, Furious 7, and F9. Fast X is still in theaters and now available on VOD.
