The tale of Vin Diesel's rise to superstardom is pretty amazing and would seem downright unbelievable if it wasn't happening right before our very eyes. The former bouncer mysteriously parlayed three supporting roles (not counting his early exit in Saving Private Ryan, or voice work in The Iron Giant) in Boiler Room, Pitch Black and The Fast and the Furious into a $20-million-per-film paycheck before he'd ever opened a film that featured him playing the main character.  At least that's what Diesel will earn for the sequel to his latest film, XXX – a lame Gen-Y James Bond knockoff that practically had me reaching for my Nintendo controller in an attempt to pause the non-stop action.

So this is the first time Diesel has had to carry a film.  Can he do it? Well, he can probably carry a piano, but it becomes pretty clear Diesel has no business trying to carry a film.  His lack of personality has never been more apparent than it is here, especially in XXX's few attempts at comedy. Diesel is as loose and funny as a totem pole.  Essentially, he's a slightly less ridiculous version of The Rock.  His acting style is as subtle as a sledgehammer, and, sadly, it's a pretty good match with XXX's script and direction.

Diesel plays Xander Cage, an extreme sports athlete who performs death-defying (and illegal) stunts while his friends videotape the antics and sell them online, kind of like Bum Fights or the Bang Bus.  A strict DIY purveyor, Cage refuses to sell out, even when he's offered to turn his life into a lucrative video game.  We first meet him as he steals a car from an unctuous California state senator and, as you've no doubt seen in the film's many trailers, drives it off a bridge while parachuting to safety.

Meanwhile, NSA agent Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson, Attack of the Clones) has lost his third man in a covert attempt to infiltrate a group of Russian transplants living in Prague.  These perps have somehow managed to get their hands on a deadly biological virus called "Silent Night" and are in the process of developing a means to deliver said bug to a handful of the world's biggest cities.  Tired of losing talented agents, Gibbons decides to recruit lowlife American scumbags and give them the opportunity to serve either their country or a lengthy prison sentence.  I'm still not sure which is more troublesome – the conscription of crooks to honor and protect, or the fact that the film's only black character shares his name with an ape.

After passing a couple of fairly entertaining tests (well, the first one was entertaining; the second was just silly), Cage is dropped into Prague, where he quickly penetrates the Anarchy 99 group, befriending leader Yorgi (Marton Csokas, The Fellowship of the Ring) and catching the eye of his girlfriend, Yelena (Asia Argento).  For those of you keeping score at home, that's one New Zealander and one Italian playing Russians.

The next 90 minutes are packed to the gills with explosions and gunplay, enough to make me want to watch about 20 straight explosion-free films just to recover.  Diesel's Cage is a Bond wannabe, right down to the three-character nickname (007 becomes XXX), the cocky ability to woo the bad guy's sexy squeeze, a fast and shiny car (Cage has a tricked-out '67 GTO that makes Bond's ride look like a Ford Festiva) and a nerdy compatriot who hooks him up with all manner of neat gadgets (Joe Bucaro III plays the Q type here, though he's probably much closer to another Q knockoff – Kevin Weisman's ops tech Marshall Flinkman from Alias).  But we like Bond because he lacks the smug swagger of Cage.  We never once think he might be harmed, let alone killed, so don't worry about having to deal with irritating cinematic techniques like suspense or tension.

Do the filmmakers (director Rob Cohen worked on Furious with Diesel and screenwriter Rich Wilkes is responsible for such classics as Airheads, The Jerky Boys and something called Beer Money) care that their film is monumentally dumb?  Of course not.  Why worry when you can incorporate another three or four dozen explosions?  To top it off, XXX punked out and went for the moneymaking PG-13 rating, which means there isn't any cursing or hint of nudity.  I truly feel for Argento, as this is the first time mainstream American audiences have seen the Italian beauty (and daughter of horror maestro Dario Argento), who isn't given much to do here except play the Bond girl role (she's been in dozens of European films and has established herself as one of that region's top up-and-coming directors).

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for violence, non-stop action sequences, sensuality, drug content and language