Reptiles Wildcard: XXX: Return of Xander Cage (2017)

Gather together from the cosmic reaches of the universe. Here in this great screening room with comfortable recliners are the most powerful forces of good ever assembled.

Keith. You have that, you have that 8-minute opening, you have that 8-minute opening credit scene, and then there's 8 minutes of credits at the end. So we're down to like an hour and a half, but it seems like 3 hours.

Terry. I was so happy to see that guy again. I was like, oh, thank God the soccer guy's back.

Derek.

Yay, yay!

And the power twins, Zap and Jordan, with their magical lemur snort dedicated Welcome back to Fumbling Their Way Through Movies, one forgotten gem at a time. This week we watch the 2017 Vin Diesel wet dream, Triple X: Return of Xander Cage. This is Fumbling Through Film.

You get that I don't work for suits. What makes you think I'm gonna want to ruin all their fun? Well, if you won't do it for me, do it for Gibbons.

Your country needs you, Mr. Cage. The Triple X program needs you.

It's time to be a patriot. By whose definition?

Last time I was patriotic, I got 3 strikes, and there was only one man who believed in the underdog. Patriotism is dead. There's only rebels and tyrants now. So which are you? I'm Triple X.

Hello and welcome to a brand new, one-of-a-kind, genre-defining episode of Fumbling Through Film, the only show that dares to bring together 3 dudes to talk about movies. But these are the movies— these aren't just any movies. These are the movies that we've either missed, overlooked, or feel are simply worth revisiting. My name is Derek and I am a fumbler. Joining me here in the Fumble Dome, where we stream all of our movies from our comfortable recliners, is the one and only Prime Minister of Fumbling, Keith.

What up, what up, KG? Uh, Prime Minister of Fumbling, fumbler extraordinaire. I, I still work on that one. Anyway, I'm here.

He's here. It's been a long weekend, but he made it.

Mm-hmm.

And the other one that's here with us in the room, he's hiding. He's being— he's being sneaky. He's usually out and about and strutting around and talking, but I don't know where he's at. He's here somewhere. It's the Dr. Dre of Kansas, Terry.

Oh, here, I'm up here. I'm about ready to burst through the window from about, uh, 2 stories up. I'm about to land in, and I'm gonna kill everyone in the room and run off.

And no, but no matter what he does, he's gonna fumble while he does it.

Yeah, that's the problem is I probably won't succeed. Yeah, I'll probably trip or something.

And oh, wouldn't that be funny if you make that leap and you just hit the glass, go down the building, everybody just looks up and like, huh? Oh, you just see shattered shins because he jumped a very long way.

He did.

Yeah, that's just the end of the movie. Yeah, nothing else happens.

Oh yeah, I'm fine if we want to end it right there.

That's great.

All right, Derek, Derek, share, uh, share our next theme.

No, we can't do that. We gotta talk about our movie from this week. But before we can do that, let's let the listeners know what it is we do. Watch movies. We talk about the movies ad nauseam, but not just any movies. Every month, one of us chooses a theme or a genre to go by. This month, Terry chose reptiles. Reptiles. Now, we've watched our 3 reptile movies, and this is the wild card round where we took a movie that was brought up or discussed tangentially related to our conversations. We each picked one, put them on a spinner of death. The spinner of death provided us with XxX: The Return of Xander Cage. Yep, it sure did.

It was a miracle when that happened.

And again, just to remind people, this is because IMDb mistook which person they were referencing.

Same name, different person.

Same name, different guy, but he's on the soundtrack.

Yes.

Not even in the movie, just on the soundtrack. But this was from when we watched, uh, Alligator a few weeks back.

Yep.

Yep.

And, uh, realized that one of their actors were like, man, why? That's crazy. He's on the soundtrack for this.

Nope.

Wrong guy. But it was brought up and thus becomes fair game. And then, and then the fumbling gods, they, you know, did not— I, I recently, I recently watched, uh, Gladiator 2, much like Gladiator 1. It's the thing where like the thumbs up or the thumb down thing. And, uh, yeah, so one of those guys put the thumbs up for this one.

Yep, yep, they blessed us with this film.

Long story short, we're watching Triple X: The Return of Xander Cage.

All right, so I think we probably may have touched base on this when it first came up. Um, this is the 3rd movie in the Triple X franchise.

Yes.

Either of you seen, um, Triple X or Triple X: State of the Union?

No, never.

Me neither.

Okay. All right. I, for the record, I did see Triple X, uh, in the theaters when it came out. Oh, wow.

Okay.

Um, well, I had a gift certificate for some reason, um, for the theater.

You used it on that?

Well, I said yes. And so it wasn't even my money. I still felt like I got ripped off when I saw that.

But a gift.

Yeah, I did not see State of the Union with Ice Cube. I did not see that one. Oh, and, um, yeah, so, but yeah, I'm— we're back, just, uh, just like Mr. Cage, we're back.

So Derry and I had absolutely no idea what to expect. We don't know any of the carryover storylines. We didn't know the running gags, nothing.

Any lore that was important?

No lore, no continuity.

We were just—

we were triple X virgins. Return of Xander Cage.

True.

Yeah, it was our first foray into it.

All I knew is it's gonna be real extreme. That's all I knew.

I, I thought it was gonna be real extreme or really sexy or extremely sexy. I can't tell.

Or extremely extreme.

Extremely sexy and sexy. And there's a lot of stuff going on here, but before we talk the movie, Terry is going to take us closer to the movie than we've ever dared dreamed. With another patented, this is patented, Fumbler deep dive.

Well, yeah, Triple X Return of Xander Cage is what we're talking about, of course, and it was directed by DJ Caruso. Yes, has not directed a whole lot that I recognized. The ones I did recognize were Disturbia, which is like the guy spying on his neighbor or something like that, and I Am Number Four. which is like one of those young adult novel adaptations. Um, I haven't seen either of them, but I have heard of them, so that's nice.

Seen both of them.

Oh really? How were they?

Uh, so Suburbia, I think that's the Shia LaBeouf one. I think that's actually pretty decent. I saw it once. Um, the other one's pretty trashy.

It's, it's a, it's a loose remake of Rear Window, if I'm not mistaken.

And the other one is, um, there's— I think it's Aliens. There's, there's 4 of them. And I think the one person doesn't know that they're the 4th one right away. Something along those lines.

Secret Alien.

Yeah.

Um, I'm praying that happens to me.

You don't know you're the 4th alien?

Yeah, I really hope I'm the 4th alien of some sort of interstellar species.

That would be pretty cool, actually. So I probably could have looked this up as well, but is DJ— is that like David Jr.? Is this David David Crusoe's kid?

Uh, I didn't look that up. I have no idea.

I thought it was DJ Qualls at first. That was what was in my brain, and then I realized that's not who it is.

No, and I was happy it wasn't DJ Khaled.

But no, it's not. I don't know. I don't know his family history. There wasn't a whole lot about him in this trivia. Um, I knew they kept talking about how he was hooking up with other directors in terms of working with them, but the way it was phrased was kind of weird. I was like, okay, don't keep calling it hooking up. It kind of sounds different. Like he did something else.

Um, yes.

Uh, he did direct a movie called Mary, which is an adaptation of a biblical character.

Are you kidding? We're going back to the Bible?

Uh-huh, that's right. Mary.

It's— what character?

Well, there's 2 Marys.

Oh really? Well, it's about Jesus. It's Jesus's mom. Oh, okay.

That Mary.

That Mary. Um, yeah, she, uh, She's on the run, you know, she has a mysterious pregnancy. Pregnancy. Um, it doesn't look really— you know, we watched Noah, which was another Bible epic. Um, this is not an epic really. This seems more of just like a drama. Um, but both movies do have Anthony Hopkins in them, so that's interesting.

Why is Anthony Hopkins in this movie?

He plays Herod. He's a king. He's obsessed with power and he wants to kill the Messiah before he's born.

So we have to ask a serious question, and we don't have the answer. Okay, but is Anthony Hopkins dying? Is he just trying to stockpile cash before he dies so he can— I think he's just fam. Like, why would you keep doing these things?

He's doing every movie he can, I feel like, because he was in that Transformers movie too, The Last Knight or something like that.

I mean, if not, if not physically, his soul is.

God, what is going on?

Have you, have you seen those videos of him where he's like dancing to jazz piano and having like a grand old time? Like, he doesn't seem like he's having a bad time. He seems very happy, like almost too— honestly too happy.

Yeah, there is zero shame in passing on a role. Like, Michael Caine used to be in every movie that was presented to him. Yeah, yeah.

But Michael Caine's also been known for saying, like, when he was in Jaws 4: The Revenge or something like that, and they asked him what he thought about it, he's like, I've never seen it, but the house that I live in because of it is great.

Yes.

Yeah, he— Michael Caine doesn't care what movie he's in. He's like, yes, have you ever seen me?

How much?

Never. Wasn't Anthony Hopkins in that like Pope movie that was really good?

Was he? I don't know. It feels like he's in everything that we talk about.

That's— yeah, it's, um, I don't know why.

Oh yeah, because he was in— he was in something that we watched. It was another one of the movies that came up during this time where you didn't think that was actually really Anthony Hopkins.

The doll movie.

Yeah, yeah, but that was from the '70s, right? So, but I mean, like, now it just feels like he's just doing everything that's coming his way.

You probably, you know, you start to get to that age, it's like nobody's gonna hire you for anything. So if you get something, it's like, all right, fine, I'll do it.

Well, no, I think he's at the point where he doesn't— like, he doesn't have to read for parts, he doesn't have to audition.

They're just like, hey, oh, it's offer only.

Yeah.

Um, I see.

Sir Hopkins, would you like this?

Sir Hopkins.

Yeah, it's not mister, it's sir. He's like, uh, Your Highness or something.

Yeah, Your Highness.

My lord.

My lord.

Um, and they just ask, and they're like, well, how much time? Uh, probably 10 minutes. Uh, be on set for a day. Cool. How much? Yeah, $6 million. Sure, we're there.

Yeah, it's hard to turn down that Netflix money when it comes your way.

Yeah, I mean, look, if Netflix wants me to come play King Herod, I will do it as well. then I'll accept pretty much any role. So I get it, man.

That'd be great if the 3 of us could get cast in some crazy—

oh yeah, Bible movie. Oh my God, it has to be Bible-themed. I won't do anything if it's not Bible-themed.

I'm gonna tell you what, if I got cast in a Bible movie, its legitimacy would go down.

Well, I mean, I mean, there was another— there was another, uh, another show we did where you were referred to as the Carpenter of Men, Terry. So I guess maybe, uh, Oh, that's true. You would fit in perfectly.

Terry has a role he was born to play. I'm more of like a Satan type, I think.

Yeah, you could be like the voiceover for like the snake or something.

Or yeah, the Judas. Yeah, I could be Judas. I would definitely be Judas.

Okay, you'll be Judas, I'll be, I'll be Jesus. It's fine.

You know, I'll, I'll be honest, uh, when we had about a dozen movies we could have picked from here and Derek, you're the last person to pick which movie got but onto the spinner of death and you picked this, you definitely had the Judas vibe going on.

Hey, 2 Brutus.

Yeah, I'm Judas and Brutus.

Judas and Brutus though, that's a great film.

Yeah, a buddy cop.

Yeah, yeah, that they redeem themselves. 2 betrayers, they come back from hell to like solve a mystery, out for redemption. It takes a betrayer to find a betrayer.

So DJ Caruso directs this, this, uh, Bible pander movie called Mary.

Yep, yep.

And good for him.

It looks kind of meh, but I have no desire for this. I have no desire to watch either. So I'm sure it's nearly— there's— I didn't see any rock golems, so it's probably lame.

Yeah, nor is it accurate.

Yeah, nor is it biblically accurate.

Yeah.

I forgot who. Yeah, who— why wouldn't you include Jesus's rock golem uncle in there? Yeah, um, this movie was written by F. Scott Fraser.

When I saw that, I thought it was gonna be Fitzgerald. Yeah, like, it is. You hit— like, that is such an intentional do right there. Like, I'm a writer, my first name is Franklin, my middle name is Scott, my last name is— what's his last name? Fraser.

Fraser.

I'm gonna go by F. Scott Fraser.

You should go by F. Scott F.

FSF.

Oh yeah, that's nice. I like that. Um, he doesn't have many credits, so maybe he's still working on his, um, marketing.

No one can take him seriously because of F. Scott Franklin.

Fraser. Yeah, Franklin Fraser. Um, but this is one of the 4 films that he has written.

He's written 4. Good for him.

And, uh, funny enough, he wrote a movie that Anthony Hopkins was in.

Oh my God.

All right, it's called Collide.

Clyde?

Collide.

Oh, Collide.

Either way, I've never even heard of this movie.

It's about a retired car thief who must get back into the criminal underworld after his girlfriend is kidnapped by Anthony Hopkins.

Is that the plot? Anthony Hopkins plays his himself?

No, he plays a villain. But all right, I think— I—

okay, I think we need a wellness check on Anthony Hopkins. Yeah, I've, I've changed my stance on this.

When did this one come out?

2016.

Pretty recently.

Yeah, I'm thinking if we write a movie and we contact Sir Anthony Hopkins, we have a chance of getting it made.

I'd say like 20% chance.

Yeah, if we write a role specifically for him, it sounds like any of the roles he would pick.

So yeah, give him like a producer credit so he's got a little control over the story or something. He'll get really excited about that, I bet. Oh yeah, I think we could do this. We should, we should reach out.

We should do this.

We've got that— we got a few movie ideas. We just throw one of those out.

Oh my God, Anthony— Sir Anthony Hopkins in Bassacanda.

Sewer Cannibals. Sewer Cannibals is still my favorite one.

Yeah, yeah, he plays the titular sewer cannibal. He would look— he might do it.

Yeah, sewer cannibal.

He already played one cannibal.

Oh yeah, well, no, see, he wouldn't want to be in that one because he has already played a cannibal. Oh, he won't—

doesn't get typecast.

Yeah, yeah, he doesn't want to get typecast as a 90-year-old man.

Oh, but him, him leading like, um Him leading a, uh, like a boat crew down, oh, maybe the Mississippi.

And that's sort of— The bassacandas in the Mississippi?

It's not the jungle.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, no, I like the riverboat down the Mississippi right now. It's on one of those like, uh, big paddle boats, steamboats, and it's choo choo, and it's like mid-1800s, and he's fighting the bassacandas.

Oh, it's a period piece?

Yes.

I didn't think of that. Now that's interesting.

And then you get somebody else like— and, and that's how you start the movie. Because then we don't want to keep him around too long. And then we, we fast forward, you know, then we get to more like a modern time. It's like his like grandson or great-grandson is now like still on the hunt for the legendary Abasakanda. Yeah, that killed his grandfather all those years ago.

We could flip it where he was a young man when he'd been attacked, now he's old, now he's coming back, he's still hunting.

Yeah, he's like the, I saw it, it was this big, you know.

We'll let him decide. He can figure out which side. Which, which one would you like to stay for 10 minutes, or would you like to be in the whole movie?

You write it that ambiguously where you can choose either character?

Choose your own adventure, Passacanda style.

Yeah, it'd be like that old lady in Titanic where he's just there and he's just like throws some jewel back into the— yep, into the—

into the Passacanda.

Yeah, chokes on it and dies. Yeah. Oh well, uh, Anthony Hopkins is in that, which is funny. Um, you know, it looks like this movie's got a lot of car chase scenes, stuff like that. Stars Nicholas Hoult. He's the main character.

Um, I don't know who that is.

He was in Renfield.

Lex Luthor.

Oh, Beast.

Yeah, yeah, he played Beast. Um, he was in Nosferatu as, uh, that one guy.

He's in Nosferatu too?

No, he plays, uh, Jonathan Harker, I think.

I look forward to watching that soon.

Yep, yep, that's a good— that's good. Um, Anthony Hopkins isn't in that one though, so that's kind of lame.

Uh, very lame.

Although Anthony Hopkins was in, um— sorry, we keep talking about Anthony Hopkins, but he was in the, um, that Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Yes, he was. He was, uh, uh, uh, what's his name, the hunter of vampires?

Yes, uh, Van Helsing. Mm-hmm. So you don't apologize.

This comes up organically. It's fine. It just happens to be happening, man.

Um, well anyways, I saw that Scott— F. Scott Frazier, he's also credited with writing the upcoming Gears of War movie.

There's a Gears of War movie coming out?

There's a Gears of War movie coming out. I haven't played that game in a long time, since probably high school.

Yeah.

Um, I remember liking it.

There's 6 or 7 of them now.

Yeah, there's a lot of them. I've only played the first 2 or 3. Um, yeah, but I feel like I remember Netflix talking about it, and I think— but Dave Bautista was like trying to get the role for the main guy. Oh, that'd be good. Yeah, yeah, which I thought was fitting because he kind of has that build.

Well, you know, it's that giant, like—

well, he doesn't have that build anymore though.

Yeah, he's slimmed down quite a bit.

Oh, he slimmed down? Oh yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so I think Bautista is a no-go on that because he wants to be a serious actor.

Nope. But Anthony Hopkins—

Anthony Hopkins could play— I can't remember what his name is, but yes, Marcus Fenix. Yes. CGI his body and just have his old-ass head on there.

Not touched up at all. Yeah, not de-aged. Just paste it on some stuntman's body.

Oh, that would be amazing. The only good use of AI is that.

Yeah, uh, only if we use it on Anthony Hopkins so he can keep acting in other roles. Um, all right, there's some notable actors in this movie. I just picked a few to spotlight that I got excited about. There's actually a lot of actors I was excited to see in this movie.

Yeah, same here.

Um, we'll talk, you know, of course we gotta talk about Vin Diesel. He played Xander Cage. We all know Vin Diesel. He's in every single Fast and Furious movie except for one.

3, right?

No, he's not in 2.

Yeah, he's not.

He's not in 2. Okay, is that when he did Triple X instead?

I think it may have been. And then in 3, he shows up like almost like post-credits type.

Oh, that's right.

It's like everyone helps at the end. Yeah, in the end of Tokyo Drift, he shows up and is like, hey buddy. And then, yeah, uh, he voices Groot in all the Marvel movies.

Yes, he was in the most unnecessary voice acting ever. But you do not need Vin Diesel to do it.

Any of us could do that.

Anybody could have done it.

Yeah, that's whatever. He also voiced the Iron Giant.

Yes, he did. Once again, but this is pre-Vin Diesel being a household name.

Yeah, yeah, very much so.

How much do you think he gets paid to be Groot?

Way too much. A lot.

Yeah, they probably— yeah, he's like, you have to have Vin Diesel, you have to. That's— no, you don't. You could get anybody to do that. Um, as long as you got like a low voice, unless you're doing like Teen Groot. I could probably do Teen Groot. I am Groot.

Anybody can do it. The only reason you think it has to be a deep voice is because it's been the gravelly Vin Diesel doing it for this time.

That's true. That people are just used to it, but we could have a new take.

I could have been anybody. Yeah, we all could have been.

Why not? We are Groot. Doesn't he say that in the movie?

Wow.

Uh-huh.

Uh, and Derek, you are correct. So 2001, The Fast and Furious comes out.

Uh-huh.

And then he goes and does this in 2002.

Yes.

2006 is when he shows up in Tokyo Drift. The end. But then 2009 is Fast and Furious. Uh, and then so on and so forth with all the other ones that they, that they do.

Now, I haven't really seen the Fast and Furious movies. I've seen the first one, and I say I've seen the third one, but well, for shits and giggles, I've seen the third one. Isn't like family being family and relying on family and we're all one, isn't that like a common recurring theme of—

Yes.

But that happens in this movie too, right?

Okay, so my, my theory right now in watching this, uh-huh, is this could have been a Fast and Furious movie plot that they didn't go with.

Very well could have been, because the car at the end.

Yes.

Yeah, well, not just the car at the end, but like the super just outrageous like idea of this thing that could drop these satellites down is like—

With precision.

Yes, with precision. Is very much like the ridiculousness that they've gotten to at this point with, uh, the Fast and Furious franchise. Um, it's either that or this is, uh, this is what Dominic Toretto dreams when he sleeps at night.

No, this is Vin Diesel dreams. This is—

no, I'm saying, no, I'm saying like 100% Vin Diesel dreams. No, I'm saying, but like, Dominic Toretto, when he sleeps at night, Xander Cage is what he's dreaming.

Okay. Is that the Vin Diesel character?

Yes.

Okay. So then it's like Inception. It's like we're in a non-constructed dream space right now.

Xander Cage is, is the, is the yin to the Dominic Toretto yang here. Toretto is like, just kind of like, you know, he's always like, uh, you know, moping around. He's always super serious until the very end when he cheers everybody with the Corona. But in this one, like, he's making— he was trying to make jokes and smiling, doing all other crazy stuff. It's like the exact opposite, yet still trying to do like similar type stuff.

There you go.

And really, I mean, this easily could have been a plot for one of— a pitched plot for a Fast and Furious movie that when it didn't happen, he was just like, I guess I could just do the Triple X franchise.

Yeah, yeah. Could be Dominic Toretto's brother.

Well, no, that's John— that's John Cena.

Oh, oh, here he has a brother. Okay, well, what if he's got an unknown brother that was separated at birth? Oh, an unknown twin.

Oh, you mean like the fact like through 8 movies they never once mentioned his brother and then the 9th one they bring, bring him in?

Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Well, they would never bring this one in because they don't know he exists. They were separated at birth.

Yep, yep.

Oh, it's a twin brother. Yeah, very much so. But it— this is— that's the full feel I got in watching this, was it like even the worst Fast and Furious movie is not this bad.

We'll see. I've only seen up to— will we? Are we gonna watch?

I don't know.

I've only— I've only watched up to 4.

4 through 10 are actually very entertaining, with probably the exception of 9. 9's a little stupid, but like, really, I really like Tokyo Drift.

Honestly, I like that one a lot.

So that might be the only one I haven't seen.

Missing out, missing out. Um, so he was in Bloodshot, which is another comic book movie. I actually remember watching that and thinking it was actually pretty good, but who knows. I was watching that during the pandemic. I think it was free on something, so, you know, I was kind of starved for any sort of content. So maybe I was wrong. Um, he's in all those Riddick films, the Pitch Black, Chronicle of Riddick.

I love Pitch Black.

Pitch Black is pretty much the only good one of those.

Pitch Black is the first time I saw Vin Diesel in a movie, and for some— I was like, this guy is going to be an action hero for the next 30 years.

He's awesome in that.

That movie is great.

It is good. It is good. And then they do Chronicles of Riddick, and it's all crazy and ridiculous.

I haven't seen anything other than Pitch Black.

And then, yeah, the other 2, he really— he's really pushed to try and expand this universe of Yeah, yeah, that's like his baby is the Pitch Black, the Riddick universe. I think he also does Boiler Room right around the same time. Yeah, that happens, and it's a side— like, it's— he's not a main character for that, but he gives a really good performance in that as well. And you get this vibe of like, this guy's about to explode and be everywhere.

Yeah, because he was also in, in, uh, Saving Private Ryan too.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's true.

All around the same time.

Yep. Uh, there's a movie I remember seeing in theaters, The Last Witch Hunter.

Um, you saw that in theaters?

I saw it in theaters with my friends in college.

Uh, is it terrible?

I can't tell you how disappointed we all were. Yeah, we were all very disappointed.

It's so bad.

Don't know what we thought going into it, but it was not good. Um, well, and some— so apparently Vin Diesel's acting career began at a very early age. Um, him and his brother actually broke into a theater with plans on vandalizing it, like a, um, performance theater. Um, however, one of the theater directors caught him and she offered them roles in the upcoming play, like, rather than calling the police. Like, here, we won't call police, but you have to be in our play. Um, and that's what kickstarted his whole lifelong passion for acting.

Really?

Yeah.

He's also like a hardcore nerd too.

Yeah, he's a huge Dungeons and Dragons guy.

Uh, he is like—

the, the Witch Hunter is his character from his D&D campaign, I guess.

Is it really?

It's based off of that. Yeah.

Uh, he's in a small, uh, uncredited scene in New Jack City. Oh, uh, he plays like a bouncer in that. And then he's also, uh— I know a lot of people bring up the fact that he did a— there's a toy called Street Sharks.

Yes. Yeah.

And he did a commercial for that. That's—

did he do a commercial or was it like a toy convention booth? I can't remember.

He was at a convention like talking about the toy, like, look how cool this is.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

He also was in a how to breakdance video too.

Really?

Yes, he was. Then he had hair in that one.

Yeah.

Wow, I want to see that. Um, he's also a musician.

Yes, he sings.

Yeah, he released a song called Feel Like I Do. Um, a while, a few years ago. Uh, it's kind of just your classic pop song, nothing too crazy. I was kind of expecting something a little more aggressive and extreme just because from his movies and stuff, but it's actually pretty chill. Not really something I'd usually listen to though, so I don't know if it's any good or not. I thought it was fine.

I don't listen to that kind of music either, but it's not good, I can tell you that right now.

Okay, but you know what, the album art, he looks like a very happy guy, so that's nice.

He should be, man. He's part of like a multi-billion dollar franchise that's basically all his doing.

Yep, he should be a happy guy.

Yeah.

Uh, so then we had Donnie Yen as Zhang.

Yes.

So I love Donnie Yen. Um, he's a really great martial arts movie actor. He's been in a ton of movies. Uh, recently he was in John Wick 4. Yes, he was the blind assassin. Amazing in that movie. Yeah. Um, he's of course the star of the— in the Ip Man series. He played, uh, that's about—

is he really?

I've never seen it. It's about Bruce Lee's like martial arts teacher. Um, and those movies are based on his life, uh, although of course they take a lot of creative liberties, especially as the movies progress. Um, the first 2 movies are really, really good. Uh, and the 3rd one, he fights Mike Tyson. Yep. Which is kind of weird.

Yeah, as Mike Tyson, or is he a different character?

He just plays some character, but Mike Tyson's in it, which is kind of random. I remember not thinking that one was as good. But he was also in Rogue One. He played a blind character in Rogue One as well.

Yes, he did. No, so I'm not super familiar with his, his catalog, but I knew him from Rogue One. And then when I watched, uh, John Wick 4, I'm like, he's blind in that. And I had to Google, is he blind? Which was an autocomplete. It like, yeah, like, I didn't even have to—

Is Donnie Yen blind?

Yes, he is not.

Well, he did a good job then convincing you.

Yes.

Wow. Yeah, I mean, he's done it twice.

I'm at one with the Force and the Force is with me.

I know, why would you play a blind character twice? Isn't that so strange?

I mean, what are the odds? Yeah, um, he did so well in Rogue One, they're just like, do it again in John Wick Chapter 4, why not?

Can you play blind one more time? Yeah, I guess.

Yeah, if you want me to.

Can't you get somebody that's blind to do it? Nope, nope, nope, nope.

It's gonna be you.

Okay.

Uh, he's in a movie called Kung Fu Jungle, or as when I watched it, it was called Kung Fu Killer. Um, I don't know what made the change of the name. I think Kung Fu Killer is a much better name than Kung Fu Jungle, but that's just me. Uh, it's about a martial arts instructor. He's in jail because he accidentally killed somebody, but he, uh, helps the police hunt down a man who's going around killing a bunch of other martial arts instructors in the area.

Yeah, weird. Okay.

Yeah, kind of strange setup, but I remember thinking it was pretty decent, so not bad. I would also watch that a long time ago, so I don't know.

Uh, what about Enter the Fat Dragon?

Uh, I have seen the trailer for that, but I have not actually seen that movie.

Enter the Fat Dragon?

Yeah, it's Donnie Yen in a fat suit, like, doing stuff.

Oh no, Donnie Yen!

Yeah, that's, uh, he's like the Eddie Murphy of kung fu movies now. I'm not sure about that one.

A cop is assigned a case of escorting a criminal to Japan while dealing with his— with relationship problems, his enormous change in appearance as a result of being dumped.

Oh no, Donnie Yen. Yeah, he plays blind and fat. Never together at the same time though.

No, never together.

Maybe in John Wick 5 he'll come back blind and fat. Yeah, as a new character.

Yeah, maybe he'll just have his own movie now, Blind Fat Assassin or something.

Yeah, I'd watch that in a heartbeat.

Blad? Blad? Blad Assassin. The Blad Assassin. Blind Fat Assassin. I don't know how it works. I don't make the rules.

We'll work on that. Yeah, that'll be one of our next scripts. We send in Anthony Hopkins.

Anthony Hopkins and Donnie Yen.

Anthony Hopkins plays his, like, um, uh, his old, uh, sensei.

Yeah, his old martial arts teacher. And we can CGI his head on a man's body and have him fight.

We'll have to de-age Anthony Hopkins. Yeah, to do a flashback scene.

You'll probably love that.

I'm sure he would. As long as he gets a check, I don't think he cares.

I don't think he cares at all.

Yeah, that, sir, carries no weight in the film industry anymore.

No. No, he's Sir Anthony Hopkins featured in Transformers: The Last Knight.

He puts away the sir when he signs the contract.

Yeah, he was probably sir in that Pope movie where they got the Oscar or whatever, but then yes, then the Transformers: Last Knight. Yeah, let's just keep Anthony Hopkins.

In those movies he goes by Tony Hopkins.

Tony Hopkins.

The Queen actually called him up and said, hey, look, You can't do that anymore.

Excuse me.

Yeah, yeah. Um, we got, uh, Ruby Rose as Adele Wolfe. Uh, she was also in a John Wick movie.

Oh, was she?

Which one?

She was in John Wick 2.

Nice.

She played, uh, the henchman to the main bad guy in that one where she was like—

Oh, okay.

Mute. She couldn't talk.

Oh yeah, I remember that. She was really— so I Googled to see if she was really mute.

Then autoclick completed immediately.

Yep. She was my favorite character in this movie, to be honest.

Yeah, I really liked her character.

Her and the other one, Becky or whatever.

Oh God.

Yeah, they're great. Um, other notable things that she has done, uh, She was in The Meg, which I really like. Um, she played some hacker or something, I don't remember. Uh, she also played Batwoman in the CW DC Universe.

Did she really?

There you go. Cassandra Cain for the first, the first season of it, and I think they switched her out to somebody else after that.

Yeah, I had her. She had her own show. Um, I didn't really remember ever seeing that, Batwoman, but apparently she did. And yeah, I read that apparently she was kind of a pain to work with, so they like kicked her out.

You know, that's like code. They put that on people. Like, she probably didn't want to have sex with somebody.

So I think she may have done something controversial as well.

Oh, is she a J6er?

Oh God, yeah, she ran the Capitol.

Damn it.

Oh, I don't know.

Uh, all right. In July 2021, Rose said she was allergic to latex, which was another reason for leaving the Batwoman as her character, because the masks may have latex. Um, then she began publishing allegations of abusive and dangerous working environments, blah blah blah.

Who could say? Allegedly all this stuff has happened. I don't know. Uh, she was in Orange Is the New Black, which is a pretty popular show.

Mm-hmm.

Though I've never seen it. Me neither.

I saw a handful of seasons.

My wife watched all of them. She loved them.

Oh really? Wow.

Yes.

Maybe I should watch it. I've heard it's good. I just— yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I have no excuse for not watching it, I guess. Besides, I don't have Netflix anymore.

That's my time would be the thing.

Time as well.

Yeah.

Um, she was in a movie called One Up, which is about a girl gamer who decides to start her own all-woman esports team after she faced discrimination from men on the team she was originally on.

Okay, I can get with that.

Ruby Rose plays the trainer who trains all the girls, um, and she trains with like old arcade games. She throws balls at them to keep them mentally prepared. She makes them watch wrench. Yeah, it reminded me a lot of playing League of Legends. Yes, yes, it's exactly like that because it's comedy. This movie's a comedy. And then—

Oh, is it?

Okay. Yep. And then, yeah, so she's like throwing balls at them, uh, she makes them LARP to keep up their physical fitness.

Kind of like this idea.

Yeah, yeah. She's also in, um, thing we mentioned last, uh, last week. She's in Dundee: The Son of the Legend Returns Home.

Oh really? She's Australian.

Yeah, so that's probably— wasn't that commercial?

I'd already forgotten about Crocodile Dundee until now. You didn't? I didn't.

No, because I watched this and I was like, oh, I know which one I liked more.

Never forget Dundee.

Wow.

Yeah, you like—

okay, never mind, go on.

We'll get around to it. Yeah, um, we should probably actually get to the movie at some point. Don't worry, I just have a few more things to talk about here. Um, Anyways, uh, we'll talk about the next guy, Tony Jaa as Talon.

Yes.

This is another guy, like, he's a martial arts guy as well, um, much like Donnie Yen. Uh, the ones I know best are Ong-Bak, which he plays the main character. He's like a Muay Thai—

Ever seen? Is it good?

The first one is really good, I think. Uh, yeah, uh, and it's— I like his— the fighting style on that. It's a lot different than you usually see because it's kind of a unique— you don't see like Muay Thai a lot, I feel like, in these movies, so It's kind of cool.

Is it Muay Thai?

Yeah.

Why Muay Thai? Is— am I saying it wrong?

Well, it sounds like the drink.

Yeah. Well, whatever it is. Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. I apologize for my mispronunciations.

Oh, people are just scathing right now.

Our Tony Jaa fans are just getting so angry. Yeah, I'm sorry.

Muay Thai or Mai Tai fans? Either ones.

Our Venn diagram of, uh, Tony Jaa, Anthony Hopkins fans, just absolutely pissed at us.

Yeah, um, anyways, I like the fighting style in that movie, so it's pretty cool. Uh, he's also in The Expendables 4, which I assume a bunch of old action people go out on a mission or something like that. I have no idea.

I've never seen an Expendables movie and I feel I'm better for it.

You probably are.

First 2 are okay.

Oh well, maybe they're not.

I've never seen the 3rd one or the 4th one, so.

Uh, he was in Fast and Furious 7, so there's a Vin Diesel connection there. Oh, it's interesting.

Combat.

I don't even remember who he is in that.

He was also in Monster Hunter, which came out semi-recently. It's based on the video—

Is that based on the Capcom game?

Yes, it's based off the video games.

Oh, it's got what's-her-face from the Resident Evil movies in it, right?

Milla Jovovich. Yeah, yeah. And it's directed by that guy Paul W.S. Anderson.

Yeah, her husband.

Yeah, her husband. How, how weird how that always works out, huh?

That guy.

That one guy.

Not just that guy. It's Milla Jovovich is his husband.

Yeah, that's what it should be known as.

That's a lot of syllables right here. That was tough.

I don't really like that guy's movies ever.

No, they're not very good.

Yeah, he's— it's— he's one of those directors I don't understand why he keeps getting to make movies. I guess because Resident Evil sold so many, like, they don't— he's made so much money off these movies.

My wife loves the Resident Evil movies.

Really?

Yes, loves them.

I binged through all of them a few years ago.

That's a tough run right there.

It's tough.

It's like the first one was good and then that's about it.

The first one's got that hallway laser scene.

Yeah, that was pretty cool. That's the only cool part about that movie, I think.

Um, and then, uh, his name is Paul Anderson, right?

Paul W.S. Anderson.

Yes, because there's Paul Thomas Anderson too, right?

Yeah, don't get him confused.

Yeah, very easy.

That's how he did Sideways and everything like that, right? That's Paul.

No, that's the guy that did, uh, You Stole My Milkshake and, uh, The Frogs Raining Down.

Paul Thomas Anderson. He did like that Licorice Pizza movie that came out recently.

Licorice Pizza relatively recently.

He did, uh, oh, the— I'm an Oil Man. What's that?

Yeah. And then Magnolia. Yeah, yeah.

Like a really great director.

It's a good— it's a good thing that this is the wild card round and not something where we'd be picking movies from for the wild card because—

yes.

Wow, we'd have so many quality things.

I know.

Um, but yeah, Monster Hunter. Um, it's kind of weird how they set it up to me. Like, it's about people from like the real world who get transported into the Monster Hunter world.

Really?

Yeah.

Just exist in that world.

That's what I want you to do.

It's like the Minecraft movie they got coming out.

All right.

Exactly. No, why? Don't do it. Dungeons and Dragons did it perfectly.

Yes, exactly.

The Monster Hunter exists in the world.

Just, you know what, it's pretty simple. Just make a movie about Person hunting monsters. There you go.

Who want— who doesn't want to see that?

Yeah, they have cool weapons in the game. Just give them like—

just guns, swords, giant oversized weapons. Yeah, big crazy monsters.

I don't want to see it. Yeah, exactly. I don't want to see soldiers shooting a dragon with a machine gun. No, I mean, I kind of do, honestly, but not in a Monster Hunter movie.

Exactly, in a different setting for sure.

It's just weird. I don't know why they insist on doing this sometimes. It just doesn't make sense. Just use the world that's created. It's right there.

Exactly.

It's—

there's really like 20 games about it. Just pick and choose.

Yeah. I don't care if you do your own thing within that world. That's totally fine. You don't gotta— I mean, there's not really a strong story from what I know in any of those games.

Nope.

But yeah, I don't know. It's fine. Whatever. But I didn't realize that Tony Jaa was in it, which makes me slightly more curious about it. But I don't know if I'll ever see it.

Not curious enough.

Yep.

Yep.

That's it. I was also excited to see Tony Collette was in this.

Um, that was funny. And Tony Collette.

Yeah, I was like, really? What? And then I saw Samuel Jackson was in it.

I was like, what? Well, he's gonna be amazing. He was in all of them. So because he's—

his character is the recurring character that like he's the recruiting guy, Nick Fury of Triple X. We're in really deep right now. We got way too close to that movie.

We're gonna have to— we're gonna have to go. Fly outwards, maybe even towards orbit where there's a bunch of satellites floating and there's one that's coming down.

I thought it was funny how they made that opening sequence. There's like 10,000 satellites that orbit the Earth and they made it like they're all in one area. Apparently space is so big and huge, it would— I'm like, that's a lot of space garbage. That was my first thought. Yeah, it's like, it's— they should be ramming into one another.

Yeah, they should be. And maybe they have, and that's why there's so much garbage up there.

It's ridiculous.

There's—

at one point there is a thing where the guy's like, oh, there is— he says there's 30,000 satellites in the, the thing.

Yep.

I, I stopped and had to look it up. Like, there's not.

No, it's not.

Not even close.

How many are there?

It's 10.

There's only 10 satellites?

No, 10,000.

Oh, 10,000. Okay. Okay.

But yeah, nowhere near the amount that, that they make it seem like, uh, is going on.

Maybe this takes place somewhere in the near future.

So at the end of 2022, there were 6,718 active satellites orbiting Earth.

Well, that's since 2017. Pandora's box. They've been dropping them out of the sky on people.

Oh, sure. 3 at least. Yeah.

Um, 3 less than that.

I also guess I also gotta say, uh, and even for a 2017 movie, I was surprised that we got such like an open credit scene.

Like, oh, I know, I really feel like so many—

yeah, super long. And I also feel like no movies really do that anymore. You either get the cold open or they just drop you in and they show, you know, there's like an action scene going on while they're showing you the—

Yes.

The stuff like, um, you know, uh, beginning of Deadpool Wolverine or like any of the, uh, was it Guardians 2 when they're battling that big giant monster and stuff? Yeah, I was amazed at that. Like, this, like, I don't know, it wasn't like really even showing anything, I guess.

Like, none of it made sense to me. No, this movie is an hour 47 and 6 minutes is the opening credit crawl. Yeah, where they're showing who's in it and like just some 3D computer graphics in the background, kind of like, uh, Spider-Man.

Yeah, a lot like that. Yeah, like a lot of cool zoomy, like, I don't know, things in the background. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be like the satellite.

Like, none of it's specific. It doesn't describe anything. It doesn't help the story.

No, no, it helped my hype though because I've seen all those names.

And yeah, you get the names and you're like, nice.

I don't know about you guys, but I, I assume maybe how this movie was filmed, it— there's some stuff on, on here, like, as you're watching it, like, like overly clear, like overly crystal clear, like look to it. I don't know, I, I found watching the movie sometimes I was taken out of it because like something would come in like in perfect focus for a while.

It was probably like one of the first like digital— because what year was this?

2017.

2017, man, not the first, but they probably used a lot of digital camera work for digital recording, so Yeah, who knows?

So we, we get done, we get the 30,000 satellites in the sky and one's dropping down, and then Samuel Jackson is kind of catching us up on where we've— what, like, what the Triple X program is again.

He's recruiting some guy.

He's recruiting Neymar Jr.

Yes.

Which is ridiculous in its own right.

He's like an actual soccer player.

Yes.

Yes.

Only reason I know about Neymar is he was a skin in Fortnite about 4 years ago.

Really?

Yes. Yeah, that's the only reason I know who he is.

Okay.

Well, um, I like this, like, at least the part where, like, so, you know, Samuel Jackson starts talking for a bit and then it freezes. It gives you a little background on who he is. And then when they do Neymar Jr., it freezes, tells a couple things about him, and at the end is like he thought he was recruited to the Avengers.

Yes. This is pre-Avengers though, isn't it?

No, no, no, no, no.

The first Triple X is definitely pre—

oh yes.

Yeah, the first one is, but Um, by now we're—

oh yeah, you're right, 2017. Yeah, you're right, full-on Avengers.

Yeah, we're way, we're way in the game now.

Yeah, Sam Jackson's giving us big speech about swimming pools, skateboards. Yes, skating in empty swimming pools.

Is that from the other movies?

That's how he pitches it to anybody who's— that he's recruiting, like even Vin Diesel.

So he tells him about himself. Hey Vin Diesel, let me tell you a story about yourself.

No, no, no, no. He's, he's saying that that was the inspiration for starting the Triple X program. Oh, was instead of just, you know, he's comparing, I think, like normal, like, CIA operatives to skateboarders before the time where they just kind of rolled around as a mode of transportation. And then suddenly you get these guys doing all these crazy, you know, tricks and stuff because they were— because the drought left all these pools dried up and kids doing it. And so—

Lords of Dogtown or whatever.

And so that's the inspiration for Starting this Triple X program, which was, let's find, you know, the unconventional super spy, you know.

Oh, I thought it was, let's get Xander Cage because he was the one skateboarding in the pools.

No, I don't think it was him. It was just the inspiration for it. Yeah, that would be cool. That would be cool. Xander Cage is the first one they recruited. But no, yeah, this guy's like, I'm just a soccer player. I don't really know why you want me.

I'm not a hero.

Yeah, plus, why are we eating all this food at 7 in the morning?

Was it really seven in the morning?

That's what they said.

Yeah, he's like, "Why are we eating at seven in the morning?" Goes, "It's dinner time somewhere." It looked delicious.

It did. Delicious. Yeah. But then at this time, a guy comes in to rob the store. The soccer player kicks like a napkin container into the guy's face.

Why does a guy rob this store?

I do believe that's a set. I think that's a setup.

At seven a.m., he does it. Yeah.

You think that Nick Fury had the guy come in and rob the store to see? Yes.

Well, especially when especially when you see the scene later where they like. in order to get, uh, in order to catch up with Xander Cage, they stage a whole thing. Well, yeah, with like fake bullets and all that other stuff. So yeah, this easily the guy could have walked in. It's not even a real gun.

I just assumed it was cheesy action movie coincidental sort of alignment.

It could be that too, but I'm, I'm saying I'm not putting it past like Nick Fury, the fact that they could, that they could have set this thing up. And then he's like, oh awesome, you are a hero because you just knocked the dude out with a with a napkin dispenser, napkin holder, which was hilarious.

I did not see that coming.

Agreed.

Let's talk about it a little bit more, and boom, the satellite hits right outside.

So the satellite kills Nick Fury and Neymar Jr., who is one of the biggest stars in the whatever European soccer football stuff.

Yeah, it was shocking. I was like, they're dead?

Wow.

Okay, it's almost— it wasn't as good as The Deep Blue Sea. killing of, uh, Nick Fury, but still pretty good.

Yeah, could be better, but yeah, it was just a surprise. Yeah, a pin—

when we find out that it's a pinpoint attack of a falling satellite, come on. Yeah, I—

look, I get like the thing. So it— there's this thing called Pandora's Box that they introduced in the next scene. Yeah, that can be used to hack into a whole bunch of things, including this.

Um, yes.

Satellites.

Satellites. I could understand that, but they're not directing them.

Like, here's—

no, hold on, Keith. And it has to land in a certain spot, obviously, while the Earth is slowly revolving, but also like wind and all the other stuff. Like, they're not piloting the thing.

But that Pandora's box was a prototype to control one satellite.

Well, yes, yes, we find that out a little bit later.

So that specific satellite? Come on.

That's lucky. That must have been very lucky.

And we find out a lot. We find out a lot of stuff because now Toni Collette is, uh, explaining what happened to, uh, Nick Fury Gibbons.

Yeah, there's all these CIA people in the room.

She's talking about CIA, you know, everybody except for the president himself is, is in the room, uh, and that's when while she's giving the speech, they keep going this cut of Donnie Yen just running as fast as possible.

Yes, and people sliding on the floor. A lot of floor sliding, a lot of last-second floor sliding. Oh yeah, yeah, because lots of floor sliding.

Yeah, Donnie Yen's folks are, you know, they're infiltrating the CIA as well. Yes, and but he's like a full-pronged attack. Yeah, he's like, well, I'm not sneaking in, I'm jumping right through this window.

Yeah, he leaps off like a 10-story— higher than that. It's a huge building he jumps off of and lands.

It is a ridiculous leap. And he jumps— he's got to be in the air for, I don't know, 10 seconds?

Yes.

15? It's a long jump.

Yeah, well, I mean, he's jumping from higher up and the part that he's jumping into is obviously— it's, it's—

I understand that.

It sticks out a little bit. So I, I guess, you know, and then you But he's fallen like 50 feet. Well, he's gotta get enough, gotta get enough force to break through probably what it should have been a very thick window.

Which should have shattered his shit.

He should have just died right there. Yeah.

He should have just split in 2.

Instead he hits the ground, like rolls, hops right up.

I don't think he rolled. He just hit the ground and like continued to run.

Kind of just splats on the ground. Yeah, he does.

He's just like, eh, lands on his feet and he goes.

And then he starts running again. Yeah. And then that's when he murders everybody.

And he's just standing on a table and nobody can shoot him from 10 feet away.

Well, because he takes his leather coat off and starts using that as a cool-ass weapon.

But he revealed his, his, his t-shirt, which should have made him— like, it was white and bright. It should have made him an easy target. Yeah.

Yeah. He's, he's beating everybody with like martial arts. He's grabbing people's guns and rolling onto the table and just shooting them, spinning around. Look, it was cool.

I like that he's beating everybody with martial arts.

He was, wasn't he?

He was. You're right.

And a coat.

And a coat and a gun.

And then he grabs Pandora's box and he goes to take off. I like the tough guy shows up to like stop him, and then Michael Bisping just like smashes the dude right through like a wall.

Beats him up with a book.

Yeah, yeah. The guy hits him with a book and he's like, what are you doing? Yeah, he beats him down with a book, uh, there. Uh, that's a UFC fighter, Michael Bisping.

Oh, really?

Yeah, he's, he's been in a couple other movies, and he was in an episode of Warrior. Um, he's done a couple things here and there in his retirement, but yeah, he kind of plays the same type of character all the time.

Still not as good as John Wick 3 with the book. Was it 3 with the book?

Oh, the big guy.

Yeah, where he beats—

oh yeah, yeah, not, not nearly that good.

The basketball player.

Yeah, whatever his name is, Bo Bang or whatever his name was.

Amazing.

Breaks his neck with the book. I love that movie.

Best use of book in cinema.

Agreed.

In all cinema.

Yes, best use of book. And then the other, the other lady is there too. Now she snuck in, but she's then had to use a, uh, a welding thing to She's cutting doors because they went to lock because they went into lockdown, I guess.

I don't know. I don't know. She's being stealthy. Everybody else is just beating everybody up, so I don't know why she's being so sneaky.

I'm going to admit there's a lot of points in this movie where I kind of just like my eyes crossed and I zoned out because it was so boring. I found it incredibly boring for an action movie.

Okay.

Okay. Well, the the next scene is one of those parts maybe glazed over for a bit with that, and then you're so Talon. Like, so those 3 come out.

Uh, there's the little guy.

Yeah. Or Tony, Tony Jaa.

Yeah, he's like the parkour kind of guy.

Okay, sure.

He's got the white hair.

Who is the—

who's the—

why is there a guy on a motorcycle driving at him and shooting at— like, who is that?

That was so cool.

I don't know why, but, but who is— like, what, what character is that?

That's just some guy. I don't know.

It was all of the worst parts of Mission: Impossible 2. Put into one scene.

Wow, I loved it. Mission: Impossible 2 is good, so yeah. No, it is not.

Oh no, no, I like that one. Um, I refuse to believe that.

Fair enough, I guess. Uh, but yeah, this random guy on motorcycle, I don't know who he is. He's just some security guard on a motorcycle. I don't know.

But yeah, I guess. Yeah, I, I thought maybe it was gonna be when we first saw Vin. That's why I thought it was like Vin Diesel gonna show up to like stop these people out of nowhere.

Nope, nope, I'm just random guy and he comes charging.

No, like 10 minutes into the movie.

That's true. Yeah, the, the Tony Jaa does like— he runs head straight into the motorcycle as the motorcycle is running towards him and he jumps up, kicks him out of there and lands and hijacks the moving motorcycle and keeps driving without missing a beat.

The motorcycle never slows down, it never wobbles. It doesn't do anything. It was amazing.

No. Yeah, that was pretty, pretty awesome. I don't know how I pulled that off, but it was like a lot of wires for—

That was— it got to be heavy wires and a motorcycle on wires as well.

Yeah, I—

it just—

but it also made no sense to me. I'm like, where's this? What is this guy there? Like, they have motorcycle security outside this building.

It was done to show you how good he is at jumping onto things.

Yep.

Because he jumps on a thing later on.

That's true. He's a parkour guy.

He likes to jump.

He's a jumper.

Speaking of jumping, as we get to Vin Diesel, our re— our reintroduction to Xander Cage at this point.

Yes, yes.

I'm gonna say this is my favorite part of the whole movie.

Oh, this part? Yeah, this is crazy also.

So he's climbing up a communication tower or something. Yeah, broadcast tower of some sort.

Yes.

And he grabs whatever things he needs, and then he looks at a little app on his phone that says, uh, it's a countdown to DEF CON 1.

Yep.

And then he turns and he's got skis. Yeah, he's got magnetic boots that connect to skis, which we didn't see anywhere. I don't know where those skis were at when he was doing all the rest of the stuff.

I think all Central American broadcast towers are equipped with skis.

I think so. Yes. Just in case you need to fly off.

It's like a safety measure that's built in.

Well, it worked out for Vin Diesel.

Yeah, because skiing in tropical climate makes so much sense.

That's— is it kind of odd when it's that revealed to me? Because I was like, okay, we're in a big, like, kind of a tropical area, there's a lot of greenery, and, you know, there's almost like a jungle. And then like, yeah, I guess shows his skis and I'm like, uh, what's he gonna do with those?

So, so he jumps off this giant tower right as security gets there.

Yes, he flips them off.

Lands.

Yes.

Perfectly to get these ski poles that he's got to grab.

Yes.

My biggest thing is you're going through the jungle with skis. How does it not get caught on the underbrush?

Like, my biggest thing was this. I, I, I forgave the skiing in the underbrush. Okay, why do flips? There's nobody there.

That's true.

Like, you're not— the only reason you would do a flip is either to be judged or to impress someone.

Why are you jumping through the tree branches? Just go around it.

Like bouncing off of trees. Lots of cool ski work here, and it's all done by stunt people, not in a studio with green screen. So I appreciated that.

Yeah, and he might— he's just doing it for himself.

Yeah, the whole time though, I'm looking at going like There's no way like a big vine doesn't catch onto that thing and send him flying.

For sure. He's not skiing. It was like leaves he was skiing on. There's no like loose leaves. Come on.

Uh, and then he gets to the bottom of whatever this jungle slalom.

Yes.

And there's some kids there who hand him, uh, they're all cheering for him. They hand him a skateboard and then he takes off on this crazy downhill skateboard.

But he looks at his thing and it's, there's 7 minutes to DEF CON.

Yes, yes, we're close to DEF CON 1. So Uh, Xander Cage is still doing his thing here.

He's got a skateboard down this mountain and he's shredding.

It's a— it's an awesome thing. Everybody's high-fiving him. They all know him as he comes through.

Uh, sparks are flying underneath his, his, uh, skateboard. He's like grinding against the concrete.

He's got that glove that he can put down to like help him turn. He goes off the bus.

By a bald man. On a skateboard.

Yes, it is.

That's true. Vin Diesel.

Yeah, yeah, yes, it's done by Vin Diesel. Yes, there's the part where he, he grabs onto a pickup truck and like kind of helps steer it so that he doesn't get hit by an oncoming—

he does the Marty McFly skeech.

Yeah, and then he gets to the end of his whole little path, jumps up, he runs, he's looking at it, he runs into— there's guys with guns standing around.

Yes.

He runs into the thing, he hooks it up. It's like DEF CON won in 30 seconds. He's like, ah, he hooks up the whole thing. Did it work? And all of a sudden the TV turns on and the soccer game, football match is on. Yes. And every, they cut over to the bar, they cut over to somebody else's house.

They're all on.

Everyone is cheering like crazy that he made it to in time for them to watch the big game.

Yeah. I thought it might be like a time bomb or something, but no, it was just for him to help.

I thought it was a time bomb too.

Local people get TV access.

Because they kept showing like people with guns. I thought they were gonna put it out in the ocean and have like somebody shoot it.

Nope.

Yeah, I thought it was like a ransom thing when you saw the people with guns. Like, why are those people with guns there?

Just to—

they're gonna watch the game, I guess. I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know. But yeah, you know what, it was kind of nice, this funny twist. I was like, oh. He's a man of the people.

Yes, he is.

And then that girl pokes her head in and she's like, oh, you couldn't have just called the cable company? He's like, what would the point of that be?

Yeah.

And they're in love.

Yes. In love. I don't— that's a—

they're very in love too.

At least that's what I thought at first. Sure. I thought they were in love.

Terry's young and innocent still, Derek. They were in love.

Yes. I think they were in love. Um, he gives her a piggyback ride. You don't do that if you're not in love.

That's true.

You're right. Or a train. That's something you would do if you're in love. Uh, and then they bang, which, you know, obviously, which is— you only do it when you're in love. Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

This movie is so hilarious because it is 100% a Vin Diesel wet dream.

It is.

Every single woman he meets is a Vin Diesel.

Yeah.

What'll make me look the awesomest? And It doesn't make him look awesome, really. It's kind of hilarious.

It's just funny.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

And also, it's— it— there's things in here that come across more like something you think you have seen in the '90s as opposed to like 2017.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's funny because I was like, oh, this is going to be the love interest. She'll be really important to the plot. No, you never see her again. We never see her again after this.

Yeah.

No, unless she's from a previous movie, Keith.

No. Not that, but he does leave her a Derek Jeter-esque basket at the end, which has a skateboard that says, uh, don't fall off or something like that.

Rule number 1, don't fall.

Rule number 1, don't fall.

Which I thought would come back in some way. It doesn't.

No, this character is not important apparently. I don't know why we even have it besides to have Vin Diesel, you know.

Yes, well, because we have to, we have to establish that he's now in the Dominican Republic and he's looked at a map where he's been going from place to place We also have to establish that he's Mr.

Sexy Time.

He's banging all these women.

Oh, he's very Mr. Sexy Time.

If this guy wants to have sex— sexual relations with any woman that he desires, he can.

Yes, yes.

That's what Xander Cage is.

And if that doesn't work, then he can have several women at the same time.

Yes. We also discover that he's got a Triple X tattoo on the back of his neck, which declares what he is a member of. Do you need anyone that is in the know?

Or it could just be what he's into.

Triple X extreme and Triple X sexy time.

Yep, exactly.

Seems like it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's hitting it up from both angles. Yeah, burning the Triple X candle from both ends.

That's dangerous. You gotta pick one end, man. You will get a big one when you do that. Yeah.

Um, so we— next up we get they like kind of trap him and to— yes, and he doesn't fall for it. And then we got our opening clip.

We get our opening clip like, oh, we're gonna pretend bomb a busy square. But he, he picked it all out.

He figured it out immediately.

Immediately.

And he pulls out that gun and he pretends to shoot all the SWAT people who came to like arrest him.

Not just the SWAT people, but everybody. He just sits there and spins around.

I sat there shocked. I was like, what is he doing? He's just gunning down everyone. But then I realized it was fake. But I was like, oh my God, because he's so like casual about it. He's like, and he did it in slow motion too. Yeah, which I hate. Yeah, it was weird. And then yeah, it turns out everything was fake. Every, every person there's a setup. Everything's wrong.

Um, and that is such a like childlike imagination. to create that scene.

Well, you're dealing with Vin Diesel.

A grown man or a grown adult is not going to come up with— conjure up that. It is like a childlike whimsy that would create such a scene.

Yeah, he does beat up that one cop to take his gun, so that guy got hurt, but everybody else is fine. You ain't lucky when you get to be that guy.

The one dude that gets punched. Yeah, he probably gets a bonus or something like that.

All right, you're the one who has to talk to Vin Diesel. He's probably gonna punch you and steal your gun. They had to draw straws to see who had to do that. Yeah. Um, but yeah, he knows that he's a setup and they try to recruit him. He learns that Gibbons is dead. Samuel Jackson, Nick Fury-esque character, is gone. Um, yes, he doesn't want to work with them necessarily, but he ends up being convinced.

Yes, he's compliant.

Uh, so he has to go to London to find his hacker friend.

Yeah, he's gotta go find a ghost hunter.

This seems so stupid.

Yeah, they don't They don't know where the bad guys are.

So is she from the previous movies?

Uh, yes. And okay, so, okay, well, I, I don't remember if she is exactly, but he's like, and also I need to go find my, my fur coat.

The coat seemed like something that was from the first.

That made me laugh so much because he does wear that quite a bit in the first one.

Okay.

Um, I really like that coat.

Yeah. And yeah, there's a, there's a scene in, there's a scene in the first one where he, I, because I think he goes to Russia or something like he goes someplace very cold, which is why he's wearing that. That amazing coat. And, you know, he's trying to negotiate or something with them, and then like the, like, Russian mob guy just gets up and he claps. He's like, bitches, come! And all these girls come walking into the room to come hang out with, uh—

Oh my God, really?

With Nic Cage. Yeah, which is basically now then similar to something kind of that happens next, but his— yeah, his, uh whoever this girl is that he goes to see in London, um, she's a real good hacker, but like she's not supposed to be anywhere near a computer anymore.

Yeah, she's got like a little foot tracker thing on her.

Yeah, she's basically on house arrest, um, in a very nice swanky location in London because she's swimming in her infinity pool. Uh, it's like a whole spa thing set up. And then obviously, you know, Vin Diesel shows up Uh, collects his awesome coat. I love that coat, by the way.

That coat is so funny.

Yeah, it looks dirty as hell now, but it looked very nice in the first one.

She kept it safe for him. That was nice. Uh, he's like trying to like seduce her, I guess.

Yeah, he wants to hook up with her and she's like, ah, no, instead I got these other 6 girls for you.

Yeah, apparently all her friends are down. She's not down, but all of them are down. So, wow. Yeah, that's kind of weird. But yeah, and then it's almost like it was just like, yeah, Vin Diesel's my dream.

Yeah, very much. Yeah, we're back to Derek's theory on this one.

But yeah, he's like, the things I do for my country, or whatever. And then he does 6 women.

Um, and then the next, the next morning he just wakes up and goes and has breakfast, and the girl's already got the thing figured out for him.

Yep, they're in the Philippines. She says they're dangerous, so don't go find them, but he's gonna find them.

Yeah, she's like, just burn that, you don't want to go anywhere near those people.

But he does. Philippines is apparently like a safe place. We see Zhang. I don't know if I'm saying that right. Zhang? Maybe it's Zhang. Yeah. He wants to keep the device they stole. The woman he's with wants to destroy it, but he wants to use it himself. You know, so you can see there's some tension there.

He yeah, and there's a so he they're kind of going back and forth here, and he makes this chess reference. He's like, ah, you're just worried about. pawn sacrifice. I got my eye on the king. She's like, you should be keeping your eye on the queen. And then she shoots a, like, a warning shot at him. Yeah, but she's not like— she's not looking at him.

She's really good.

Like, I don't know what she's looking at. Like, she's— she is like— it's almost like they're not in the same scene together and somebody spliced two things together and They're like, well, we'll just have to make this work. Because I rewound it specifically to rewatch the scene because I'm like, wait a minute, she's not even pointing the gun even— like, not just the gun pointing in the right direction, she's not even looking at him and looking at what she just shot at. Like, she should have missed that by like a mile. It's so— it's again one of these just— also, she's terrible in this movie. I don't know where they found her, but she's awful.

I don't think she's that bad. I didn't think she was that bad.

She does not play very good. Um, yeah, she's—

I, I—

yeah, you know, she's on par with his acting, but like, oh, that— I found her to be absolutely annoying.

So they— she shoots at him. Uh, we got to Vin Diesel again. They find— he finds out that they, uh, bought him a new plane for his mission. Oh yeah, really cool plane.

He's been gone for a minute, so he doesn't understand how much money they spent.

He's really into well, he's kind of confused why they spent so much money. He's like, "You don't need all these gadgets." I really like the Tony Collette. She's like, "You can check in your coat." He's like, "I promise no one would dare to steal it." I thought that was funny. It was like coat. Nobody wants that coat. Nobody wants that fucking coat.

It's gross as hell, man.

Yeah, it looks like it hasn't been like it hasn't been sitting someplace for like the last. 10 years since the first movie was made.

It's probably the same coat from the first movie that, yeah, they just like threw in some cupboard somewhere.

Yeah, that Vin had at his house and was like, all right, let me bring it back.

They, uh, yeah, she— he meets his tech support person for the mission. She's very talkative.

Oh God, I could not stand her.

She really is into Xander Cage. She's funny. Yeah.

Oh God, it's 100% there for, uh, the comic relief. And I, I enjoyed her. I thought she was funny.

She's like, she's like starstruck about seeing this guy, but then she's like comes on very strong to him.

Oh yes, kumquat. Kumquat happens at exactly, almost exactly the 30-minute mark. Wow.

And I wanted a safe word for watching this movie. That's exactly what I needed.

It took 30 minutes to get the kumquat.

To finally find out her safe word.

Yes.

Wow, okay. Well, yeah, that'd take a long time. We still haven't really gone on the mission yet.

No, we haven't done anything yet.

We still got a lot to do because, yeah, he meets his other— he meets the crew that, um, he's— that's supposed to help him on the mission. It's a bunch of soldiers.

This crew thing was amazing.

The captain is like not impressed with Xander Cage, and Xander Cage is like, you ever done a triple backflip on a bike before? You ever snowboarded away from an avalanche before? before. They're kind of like— the soldier's like, no, we're soldiers, we don't do that.

Doesn't Tony Gonzalez's character like— doesn't like Vin Diesel go, oh, it's you, Captain Tony, or whatever?

He's like, I saw you on the news.

Yeah, he was on a— I thought he said he was on like— I thought it's like a reality show or something, or just—

he said the president gave him a medal.

Yeah, yeah. And you ever jump out of a plane with the— he explains, and you can tell the whole time he's like setting up like Have something happen to him here. Um, he's, he's connecting things. Those guys aren't paying attention while he's hooking up a parachute to them.

Yeah.

And, and chains that are gonna like whip them out of the plane any second now.

That is attempted murder. I'm sorry.

Yeah, those guys could have died. Maybe some of them did.

No, the, the, the parachute would open automatically.

They were fine. Okay.

Okay. Well, you're right. It was probably fine. Yeah. I mean, they're back. The one guy's back. I would be like, you know what, I'm not gonna work with the guy after he did that to me, you know?

No, heavens no.

I guess he's— he might not have a choice, but I mean, like, I don't know. I don't know. It just— it was kind of a funny scene. I was like, really? Like, he's acting all high and mighty about triple backflipping off a bike and all this stuff, and I'm like, is that really that important to your mission? Do you need someone that can do that?

This Xander Cage character is unhinged.

He is unhinged, but they're also setting up something for later on too.

Oh, well, yeah, with the toilet thing.

Oh, true.

Yeah, no, um, no, for Tony Collette at the end as well, they do a little callback to this whole thing.

Oh, that's true. There's a couple callbacks: Chekhov's toilet and Chekhov's, uh, parachuting. Yeah, um, yeah, because he— Vin Diesel's like trying to figure— he's like, I'm doing the math on how long it'll take you to like to shove you through the toilet or where you will land between China and Korea or whatever. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. He really hates these guys. I mean, they hate him, to be fair. So obviously it's not gonna work, so he throws them out the plane.

He has his own team. Yeah, he can trust.

Yeah, so we get introduced to each member that he's gonna recruit. There's this lady named, uh, Adele Wolf. She's—

yes, it looks like she's—

she looks like she's gonna be shooting lions, but she's actually hunting poachers.

Yes. Um, apparently she's specifically like the people who don't ever actually go hunting but paid a lot of money to go on.

Yes.

Yeah, very specific people named Eric or Junior. And they got, they got a, they got a bow and arrow. They're about to shoot this lion. Instead, she shoots them with paintballs.

Looks like she shoots them with the rifle.

She shoots them with real gun, I think.

Yeah.

Yes. No, I didn't think she shot him with a real gun. I thought she hit him with something.

Oh no, it was a rifle.

And then the lion itself, uh, it— they very clearly—

the lion is small.

Yeah. Yes. You also learn that her gamertag is Lady Boner.

Yeah.

Yes, in Call of Duty.

Yep.

Yeah, it's so stupid.

Yeah.

Um, then we get, uh, the next guy who is, uh, it's the guy that— it's the Hound from Game of Thrones.

Yep.

He's a stunt driver and he crashes into a thing of ATMs.

He's trying to rob an ATM by crashing into it.

Money's flying everywhere. Uh, I was like, do you want to recruit this guy?

Yeah, I don't understand the point, but okay.

Yeah, he's been in 198 collisions at this point. Yeah, crashes at this time.

He's a stunt driver, and he said he was abducted by aliens twice.

Yes. Yeah, conspiracy theorist, stunt driver.

Which, especially if you like, you know, if you think about him from Game of Thrones, like, I mean, the Hound's a big dude who's like, you know, Big, strong, throwing people around, stuff like that. And I'm like, all right, he's gonna kind of be the muscle. No, he's not. He's there for comic relief.

Yeah, he doesn't do much, but I kind of liked his character.

Yeah, me too.

Yeah, yeah, it's kind of a strange choice. I don't know if I'd recruit that guy myself, but you know.

Well, then he recruits Xander Cage, man.

And then he recruits a DJ.

Yes.

So then this is the other question of like, why are we recruiting this guy?

The Hood.

The Hood himself, Nicky Nick Zhao. Uh, apparently he, he dated Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga on the same night.

And oh God, that was—

That was weird.

Yeah, yeah.

His special skill: fun to be around. That's why they're recruiting this guy. He's fun.

And he could drop a beat too.

You can drop a beat because people love— and that's his team.

Yeah, that's his team. That's who he trusts.

It's a good team.

Yeah, sniper. He's got a guy who can crash cars and he's got a DJ. So yeah, I see a use for one of them. The other 2, I'm still waiting to see them prove themselves.

No.

Yeah.

And all 3 of them separately drive the same black, like, Escalade, and they all pull up one after another at the exact same time. It was so beautifully choreographed. It made me laugh out loud.

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of poetic. It was nice.

Yes.

But yeah, they get briefed. Um, the Hood, Nix, he's like, why don't you just nuke it from orbit? And they're like, no, we'd want to keep Pandora's Box, but we're not allowed to tell you what it does.

We don't want to— it's not that they don't want to kill unnecessary life, like, yeah, or not unnecessarily kill people, right? Right.

They want the box.

They want the box. What's in the box?

I think Nix says something like, I'm not a soldier, I'm a baller, at some point. That's pretty funny. Um, they will— they're not really into taking orders from Toni Collette's character.

No, they're into taking orders from Xander Cage though.

Yep, but they're still gonna do the mission, I guess. So yeah, that's nice. Then we get to see all the cool tech they have.

Oh yeah, they got a Power Glove.

Yeah, Nintendo Power Glove.

No, the Power Glove is the main thing apparently.

Like, they got things that never came back.

Oh, well, the Power Glove came back. Toni Gonzalez.

The EMP thing didn't come back.

No, she used— that's the thing she uses to disrupt the satellite.

Oh, really?

Yes.

I didn't— I did not— maybe that's part where I like crossed my eyes.

You know what, they don't really show it clearly, but you see it a couple times. It's the same like interesting bright light and stuff like that, like the other one, like it had when he opened it up. Yeah, so she uses that a couple times.

They've got body armor. Body armor.

That does amazing body armor.

Um, she's putting it on him very seductively.

Oh, that Becky character.

She's so—

he has a saucy one.

Jeez, I couldn't stand her.

You're right, she's funny, man.

She's so funny.

Awful.

One of the best characters I've seen in a long time, honestly.

I could not stand her.

One of the funniest moments of movie I've ever seen in my entire life.

So putting on the armor?

Yes, all of it. Armor, it's all amazing.

She is a scene stealer. Like, when she's on, on screen, she's always got something to say and you gotta pay attention.

She is a, an attention grabber, a focus.

Whatever you need, whatever you need, I can get you 24 hours. Unless it's drugs, I can get you at 15 minutes.

That was kind of funny. Yeah, she gave me like, no, don't, don't ask me.

If you want some purple Urkuls, you know, don't, don't ask me.

She reminds me of what Cat Dennings is in the Marvel Universe.

Yes, a lot like that. Mm-hmm. Just a little saucier.

Yes, much more Randy.

Yeah, so much more Randy. You're right. Yeah, yeah.

Um, yeah, she's terrible. She, she, she— there's one time when you first meet her and she's like, what are you, 220, 230, maybe 250 max? I said, oh, you throw me around pretty easy.

Well, yeah, that was her limit though, 250.

Yeah.

she'll throw a dog with. I liked her. She was in charge.

That's true. She does what she wants, so she's going for it.

Yes, exactly. That's why I like her.

Except she doesn't— she's not a field agent. She never goes in the field.

I'm gonna tell you what, 100%, Keith, if the roles were reversed and let's say that was Ryan Reynolds playing that character, you'd be like, oh, he's hilarious.

You're right.

Yeah, I know. Ryan Reynolds was like the same energy as that Exactly. Yeah, you're exactly right. Wow.

You know what? Ryan Reynolds in Hobbs and Shaw is kind of like that.

Is he in Hobbs and Shaw?

Really? He is in Hobbs and Shaw.

Yes, he is.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. He is just like that. See?

Yeah, yeah.

Um, yeah, uh, the DJ's trying out the glove. He punches a hole in the plane by accident while she's trying to say, hey, watch out, that's strong enough to punch a hole in the plane. Yeah, yep, yep. Um, power glove to the—

how does it— what's the technology behind that, you think? It makes your punches ten times faster and ten times more powerful.

How?

It's got little pistons on it.

How? Was it like shoot air out of it?

How does that work? Like rocket thrusters at the end?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, because it looks like it looks like a glove. It doesn't do anything.

Of all the science fiction in this movie, that is the most fictiony.

And if you're going to give it to anybody, give it to Donnie Yen.

Yes, the guy that punches really fast already.

At the moment, he's evil.

Oh. If you put that glove on him, he might be able to punch through time.

Oh, that would be awesome. I want a movie like that where he's strong enough to punch through time.

Donnie Yen punches through time. That's the title of the movie.

He plays himself.

Yeah, yeah, it's Time Puncher. There we go.

Time Puncher.

Yep.

I'm adding Time Puncher to the list.

That's a good. That's a good idea.

Not a bad one.

I feel like the glove needs more buildup. Like it needs to be like not just like you can't punch normally. Like it needs to have like some sort of like rocket powered like yeah your final blow.

Like there's gotta be something where like warps the air around it so it makes like a wobbling sound. Yeah, nothing like that.

Or like it has to like it starts glowing and charges up and then you punch or something.

Yes.

It can't just be fighting like normal. It just can't. But it is. Um, I'm trying to remember. So they like go to a party after this. They go to the place where— wait, no, they don't.

Do they?

Do they go to the place?

They go to the Philippines.

They know exactly where to go to.

Yep.

And it's this like the negotiation scene. 22 and a half. What's a half? He snaps an M16 in half over his knee. Yeah.

And I think it's like a dude who's kind of like doesn't You get the vibe it's like one of those like kind of like buddies with them anyway. Yes, they're like arguing like Han Solo and Lando when you first meet them, kind of. Yes, you got a lot of nerves showing up here.

I don't really get the relationship and I don't get what they're doing.

There is no relationship.

And we never see that guy again.

Why are they haggling?

What are they talking about? I don't know.

But, but yeah, he's giving him a box of guns. What's the percentage we're talking about?

Yeah, exactly. Why are they doing this? 30% off the top. 30% of what?

Yeah, I don't understand.

Are you keeping 30% of the guns yourself?

It's weird, but we see him break the gun in half, so that's kind of—

yes, this shows you how powerful he is.

And this is an island where people go to hide out, but also like nonstop raves.

Yes. Yep.

Well, they called it a jungle rave.

A jungle rave. But like, I think some of these people are actually just staying there full-time as well.

Like, mm-hmm.

Yes, they're full-time rave employees. It's a place where they go hide out.

Yes.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, but it really wasn't much of a rave. It was more like a college bar experience.

It's like a mixture.

Yeah, well, until, until the Hood showed up and started, you know, dropping beats, you know, then he was— yeah.

And then the Russians showed up, started dropping grenades.

Well, no, no, the— no, the grenade scene comes first though, where—

oh, that's true.

Okay, first of all, first of all, uh, Xander goes walking around, he meets up with the, the girl Yep.

And then—

And they chit-chat back and forth, that weird, like, where they gun to the—

Gun to the nuts, knife to the throat.

Yep, yep. And then they do like a quick switcheroo, and all of a sudden she's got— he's got the gun, she's got the knife.

Yes. Yeah, but same positions, gun to the throat, knife to the nuts.

Yeah. And then, uh, it's kind of a seduction though, because you can kind of feel the tension. They're into each other.

But he later on, he goes, unless, you know, Unless you want to continue with that foreplay we had going earlier. She's not—

she's not as into it as she wants you to think she is.

No, she's skeptical.

But Donnie Ann seems a little jealous about it.

Yes, you've stole my whatever. Yeah, leading lady. But we— Adele is in a tree and she's tied herself up there with a scarf and she's laying perpendicular to the tree.

Not a scarf, she cut up like something she found on the island.

Just sails.

It was sails, sails from a boat. But she's up there, it's like a scarf. So she's up there, she's perpendicular to the tree, is in sniper position.

Yeah, she's got the perfect angle in the whole park.

But it gets even better later on when she has to exit out of the tree.

Yes, and she comes down like one of those like, like, uh, scarf acrobats, like Pink does all the time when she's doing her Pink does that? The music?

Yeah, that's— yes, she's been— she does show like her— one of the, one of the songs she does, she ends up doing that.

Like aerial acrobats like that?

Yes, yes, she does. Yeah.

For real?

100% for real. I think she, I think she did— I think she did them at the Grammys a couple years ago.

I saw somebody do that at the Ren Faire, up close and personal.

Really?

Yes, it was like some sort of like aerial acrobats, and she was like wrapped up in a scarf I was like literally ten feet away watching this. I'm like, oh my God, that's insane.

Yes, it looks cool. But I laughed very hard when also that's how she was exiting.

It's kind of awkward flying down like that.

So silly.

She's like, bloop bloop bloop bloop bloop, unrolling herself down.

Could you not just like climbed up the tree and just use the tree? I don't know.

And that's one of those things where I'm sure Ruby Rose is like, hey, can we do like a scene where like I kind of want like you know one of those rope things like. Do you think she asked for that? Oh, 100%. Yes, I've— that's got to be that she probably asked to be able to do that. And especially because the fact that we see her cutting open the sails to like just get some rope to the end, but she's got a whole thing to like— did she sew it together as well while she was there?

I guess so. I don't know.

Um, it was awesome.

But she's hanging out up there. She has perfect view of everything in that place.

Yes, she does.

Yep, it's a great—

including, uh, Xander and, uh, Donnie Yen. And what, what is the girl's name?

Uh, her name is— let me— the other one real quick. It's Serena.

Serena, that sounds right.

They're doing, um, Russian roulette with grenades all of a sudden.

Hot potato. Yeah, they're discussing what to do with the black box because, yeah, Donnie wants to keep it for his own purposes, you know.

Yes, she wants to destroy it. Xander Cage wants to return it to the United States of America.

But you kind of— to me, I was like, wow, I felt like it's just like a kinship between the 3 of them, you know?

Well, because they're all Triple X. We learned that right there.

Yeah, yeah, which is interesting. So yeah, Donnie Yen is ex-Triple X, so that makes him Quadruple X.

Oh my gosh, you're right.

But he doesn't have a cool tattoo.

No, he doesn't.

He's gotta add one more.

And that's the thing that tips off anybody. Xander Cage walks in with a Triple X tattoo on the back of his head. You're like, well, that's a triple X.

Yeah, right. If you're going undercover like that, yeah, no, yeah, it's not gonna work.

At least put something—

they know, and they know exactly who he was the whole time anyway.

Exactly.

That's true. They knew.

They're playing hot potato with one grenade, and she's like, I, you know, one grenade, 3 people, I like these odds. And then he pulls out a second grenade, and he's like, oh, all right, I love these, these odds. And then he pulls out a third grenade, and that's when the Russians suddenly drop in.

The Russians out of nowhere coming in via helicopter.

Which we haven't— now I understand everyone's after the Pandora's box, but we hadn't heard of anybody else involved in this. No other country trying to get this thing. It's just the US is trying to get this back from somebody.

Yes.

Suddenly these guys drop in and they're like, stand still. All right, put your hands behind your head. Which is it? Stand still or put my hands behind my head? What do you want me to do?

I'm glad we got that scene.

Yeah. And then he's like, look, geez, uh, you can come try and take this thing from me, but then you'll be the first to die. And after you, it'll be that guy there, then the 2 Ivans over there, Igor over there, because he gives all these names. And, uh, Adele is just up there going like, oh, this person, this person. Okay. And then she proceeds to like shoot and kill them all in order.

She snipes them as they go one at a time. It's pretty cool.

Yep. Yeah.

Yep.

And, and in the same order that Vin Diesel's like, yeah, it's gonna be you first, then those 2, then that person, then that person.

Yep.

Yeah, she memorized it all. And then that chaos ensues. He blows up the guy with the grenade.

The chaos ensues. They're having the huge fight. Donnie Yen grabs the thing and takes off.

Yep. Yep.

Uh, Vin Diesel goes to chase after him, does a couple like fun little tricks on On the motorbike.

Yep.

Um, including saving— including saving the girl.

Oh God, yeah, because he does a little bunny hop over.

Yeah. Um, but then he goes and he catches up. He catches up with Donnie Yen.

It's so stupid.

They're driving through, they're getting there. Donnie Yen jumps off a cliff, hits a button, skis pop out on the motorcycle.

Does that happen?

Really? Yes.

Yeah. I don't remember that.

I don't remember this.

Oh, how do you not remember this? Because they chase after each other onto the ocean.

This is huge.

And we get a whole thing where there's a wave going over them and they're doing like—

I do not remember either.

You don't remember this?

No.

You fully fell asleep. Do you want to pull it up right now so you can see?

No, I do not.

They hit a switch on the bike and the bikes turn water mode.

Yeah, how did I not see this?

They go surfing on the water on their bikes.

I guarantee I didn't fall asleep. I was riding the bike for the first half hour. That's how I knew the kumquat was at 30 minutes. And then I was sitting on the bench. I don't know how I didn't see this.

I'm surprised.

Must have been on my phone. Um, I was really bored through a lot of this movie, just so you know.

Oh, this is the one part not to be bored at because like, yeah, he like Donnie Yen jumps over one wave, it hits Vin Diesel, so he goes underneath the water, but then he comes up.

I didn't see this at all.

And then they're going right through, like when surfers go and you see the wave falling right over them. And these two guys are on these motorcycles with skis on them now. Oh my God. They both get crashed. The waves crash down, taking them both under. Vin Diesel finds the he finds the bag with Pandora's box. He gets out of the water, looks around. Donnie Yen is nowhere to be found.

Yeah, but Serena shows up and she's like, "If you want the box, you gotta come get it." And she just shoots it and explodes.

Yeah, and he's like, "What the hell are you doing?" The box gets blasted, but they learn that another satellite has crashed because this was the prototype one. It's really only good for the one thing.

Only controls one satellite. Blah blah blah.

And this is where the guy makes the announcement that he's gonna start dropping one satellite every 24 hours till they meet his demands.

And now we're at the one hour mark.

True. Now, yes, we're at the one hour mark. There's still 48 minutes to talk about this, and it is almost midnight while we're recording.

Yes.

Uh, there's lots to talk about.

This is insane how much stuff is going on in here.

Yeah.

Um, but now, okay, so now, like, now though, they're like, all right, well, now we have Donnie Yen, Michael Bisping and Tony Jaa have got their own little team going, and then Vin's got his people.

Yes, 2 separate Triple X squads going after the director of the CIA because they rewatched the video and he doesn't flinch. He's the only one that didn't flinch when the Forces One with me guy jumps through the window.

Yeah, he knew Donnie Yen was gonna come flying 50 stories down from the top and crash in.

Yeah, and even if you knew that was gonna happen, you would still flinch.

You'd still flinch. You didn't know when it was gonna happen.

Exactly. How could it not be a surprise?

Yeah, you should be looking for the guy who's like really like playing it up like, oh my gosh!

And the way they didn't die.

Yeah, yeah.

Everybody else died besides him and Tony Collette. Yeah, yeah.

Everyone else was shot to death. Death.

Yeah, or martial arts to death.

Yeah, exactly.

Um, so they look at the footage, they circle them on the marker, um, or with a marker on the screen, because she even goes, oh, that's not gonna come off.

And that's where we get Kat Dennings going, hey, I'm gonna have to get a new screen.

Yep, that's pretty funny. Um, they learn it's in Detroit, so they gotta go take them down in Detroit, and they're all annoyed.

They're like, Detroit?

Yes. The city on the, on the rise, on the comeback.

Yeah.

So they, they have to go. Yeah. All thanks to Triplex.

They compare tattoos. Um, they do compare tattoos.

When'd you get this one? I got this one for, you know, fucking a starfish or something.

I can't remember what they must have called it.

She climbed, she climbed up the, the giant Ferris wheel in London naked.

That's right. Naked.

Oh yeah. That's pretty close. I see how you get that confused with that. Starfish.

In high school I did this, and it's like, it was just a, a debauchery pissing contest for, for tattoos.

But this is when you see them like they're connecting now. There might be—

No, hold on. So I was watching this part, the one that was embarrassing. Was that a third nipple?

I don't know what it was. I didn't know. Maybe it was, but I thought it was just like— I think it probably was. I don't know what it was.

You can't do around a nipple. But it didn't seem like it was one of his other nipples, so it felt like it was just a third nipple on this— on his side.

Yeah, it was on the side. It wasn't even on his chest. So I don't know, that's a random place to put your third nipple.

I think he was— I think he was trying to also explain that, like, that he had done the same thing.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

There's a 20-year difference between those two in this In real life.

Yeah. Vin Diesel's like 50-something, 60-something.

He was born in '67. She was born in '86.

Yowza.

Interesting. Well, they're in love, so that's all that matters.

That's all that matters. They're so in love.

They're going to get married, but they don't have sex, which is what you do when you're in love.

As we discussed earlier, they're saving it for marriage.

Yeah, that's right.

Oh, so Vin Diesel's married to that lady in the Dominican.

Okay. They didn't ride the train together yet.

Vin Diesel wasn't married to the other woman. Or the seven others in London.

No, that was just that was just him cheating, and you know he truly loves her, so he's going to save himself for marriage. Exactly. He respects her, I guess. Yes, that must be it. This movie has a lot of respect for women. It does.

They so they they then have this they then have this crazy chase scene between the two teams to get the.

Yes, in traffic.

And, and so we do get a lot of fun action with this.

Yes, uh, the 2 teams are fighting each other.

The majority of it though is, is definitely like Vin and Donnie Yen, they're fighting, fighting it out, jumping from car to car. This again is another scene where I'm like, oh, this was a rejected Fast and Furious script.

There's a cool part where like the— a car crashes right over them and like shrapnel's flying everywhere.

That was right after they both got hit by a car.

Yes, yes.

And then they got up and just smiled at each other and then got up.

It's kind of awesome. They're like respecting each other through fighting.

Yes.

Yeah.

Oh, you got— you survived a car crash?

Me too. Okay, better get tattoos.

We're car brothers.

There's a, uh, yeah, there's like the Don— the— what's his— Tony Jaa's chasing the new recruit Serena. Um, he's doing parkour. Xander's also doing parkour at some points. Uh, Oh, and the— so then we get to the action scene with the, the stunt driver guy. Um, yes, he says he's gonna— he's got a plan. He says, hold on. He puts his tooth guard in, he rams into the other guy's truck.

Yes.

Oh, I don't want to hear that.

He hits a— he hits a ramp, uh, that's angled so that he flips the van over and in process nails, uh, the car that Michael Bisping's in, knocking it over as well.

Yes. And yes, I'm just saying, if, if I'm, uh, the Hood, and then it's just the Hood's in the passenger seat, and I see that, I hear my driver go, I've got a plan, he puts his tooth guard in, that's not a good sign. It's like, well, where's my tooth guard?

Yeah, well, yeah, because we've already established that he puts this thing in anytime he's about to do a crazy stunt.

He starts scrambling for his seat belt then.

And they hop, they both hop out like there's no big deal.

No, exactly.

Uh, so one dude's 200th Um, 200's crash, so he takes a little selfie.

Yeah, that was nice.

Which was like a pointless note in the movie.

I don't remember that, but okay.

It's kind of funny.

You didn't remember— you didn't remember the, the water skiing motorcycles, so I'm not surprised.

I just don't remember that. Some smiley emojis and he was super excited about it.

Uh, um, they get all the way up to— they, they get all the way up to the, to the, uh, space where— was it— you said it's directed Department of Defense.

Is that who that guy is?

Yeah, some CIA director.

I don't know.

CIA director's there. He has a ton of heat lamps on to— yes, to keep him from being noticed.

Sweating like a pig.

Yes, he is. I was like, that seems so uncomfortable.

Vin Diesel even says he forgot to put deodorant on, which is pretty funny.

Eventually he—

they take him out.

Yeah, my second favorite part of this whole movie.

He backs up enough so that he's no longer in like the The heat area.

Because she switched— the sniper Adele switched to infrared and she couldn't see because there's so many heat lamps. You see, the guy was smart. But Vin Diesel backs up to the window to just, just differentiate his body heat from the heat of the building.

Yep.

And then she shoots the director of the CIA in the head through the index and the ring finger because he moved his middle finger. Vin Diesel did.

And they mentioned at some other point in time where like he— she does something, he holds up his all 3 fingers like, read between the lines.

Yes.

Yeah, true.

And they do that as a callback again here.

Such good scriptwriting.

And she shoots and a bullet right through a very small thing, bam, hits the bad guy in the head and the bad guy's done now. All of a sudden, it's—

he's dead. 100% dead.

Then solved very quickly.

Over.

Oh, and Becky's been, um, using the little EMP thing to scramble the satellite stuff so he couldn't— he couldn't take control of one and drop another one.

He wanted to. He wanted to drop it on the Triple H crew.

He wanted to try so hard, but it didn't work.

Yeah, well, no, he wasn't actually gonna— that's Now that's where now Toni Collette comes through and she sweeps in and she—they're gonna frame Donnie Yen for the whole thing. Yes. Mm-hmm.

She's ordered to take out all Triple X personnel.

Triple X is broken now.

As of 22 minutes ago, everyone in Triple X is no longer—which that includes Becky, who wasn't Triple X. She was her Toni Collette staff member. Yes. And they're gonna drop a satellite right where they're at and kill all of them.

Oh, is that when that happens? Yeah, yeah.

But they've also sent in a bunch of military guys to take them out too.

Yeah, there's a raid. She shoots Xander in the chest 3 times, but he has body armor on. Why didn't she shoot him in the head?

Real good body armor.

You're fine. But no, didn't do that. Right in the gut.

So we get dual fight scenes.

We get Donnie Yen and Xander on the plane fighting against Tony Gonzalez and his crew.

Yep, Tony Gonzalez and Toni Collette, the Tony crew, are getting done in by Xander Cage and, uh, the not Jedi Donnie Yen.

Yes. And meanwhile, all the rest of the crew is there and they're, they're taking on like this, like military hired mercenaries, I guess.

The odds are overwhelmingly against them.

Yep. Oh, and Vin Diesel Gives, gives, uh, gives, uh, Serena a phone and says, hey, if you get in— run into any trouble, dial 9.

Just 9? Yeah. Mhm.

Not 1 first, then 9? Nope.

Just dial 9.

Dial 1 to get out, then 949-969-9492, then 9.

Then you have to hit the pound symbol, 9.

Leave out Powder 9, Star 9.

They'll all get you different things, so you have to be careful.

And then, Derek, you, you wanted to mention Becky's big scene. Becky's big scene from True Lies.

Yeah, where she shoots the guys, but then she drops the Uzi and then it shoots a bunch of people.

Yeah, well, she shoots the first guy that comes after her and she's like, oh, that's awesome.

This is fucking great.

She's like, this is great, I've never been in the field, this is awesome. And then she goes like step forward, falls, drops the thing, it still takes out a bunch of people, and she's like Just like in True Lies.

Remember in True Lies when—

I don't remember True Lies because I didn't see the movie.

Bounces down the stairs and shoots a bunch of people. Oh, is this going down the stairs? I don't know.

I've not seen it. I don't know.

You've never seen True Lies? I haven't. Man, this is a wild card and nothing is going to be remembered.

And I— yeah, I, I didn't like True Lies, so I've never seen it again. It needs to be revisited too.

Well, James Cameron. Oh, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Tom Arnold.

Jamie Lee Curtis. Jamie Lee Curtis. Yep, yep, I'm good.

Wow, I'm getting sold. True Lies.

Check and see if your library has that one.

It does. Worth the watch, Terry, trust me. Okay, I'll put on my list. Yeah, there's a lot of cool scenes in this though. The, the captain puts the gauntlet on, so he's punching through like walls and stuff. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so At some point in time, the pilot gets shot.

He gets shot in the back of the head.

One of the luckiest shots I've ever seen in my life.

And so the thing— the plane immediately just nosedives.

Yes. Yep. And nobody immediately falls.

Well, no, gravity disappears.

It goes into free fall.

Yeah, because of free fall. But at first nothing happens. They're all still going about their business. Yeah.

It takes a while, but it's got to pick up enough speed and like hit a certain angle, I guess. But I, I guess, I guess I didn't realize that you would lose—

Yeah, it's free fall.

Well, you know, but like, there, it's not just like, oh, we're gonna start like start moving towards the back of the plane. Like, they're, they're moving around like you see like the people on the space station.

That's called relativity though.

That's what happens. Yeah, that actually does happen.

Yeah. Oh, I was like, oh my God, this doesn't seem real.

That's how they film weightless scenes in a lot of movies. where they get in the plane and they just go up and down like that.

Uh-huh. Yep.

All right, for real, it does.

This is real. It's, it's extremely comical at this point.

That was the only part I didn't find comical. Oh yeah, because I understood the concept. It does happen.

Yeah, it's, it's not like a motorcycle going underwater and so they can't rev its engine.

No, that was legit, man.

What are you talking about?

All right, so we get that happening. The other ones are They're getting overwhelmed. They've, they've been running out of bullets.

Tony Jaa does like a cool flip, kicks a wire into water, and zaps a bunch of guys.

That was cool. Yeah. Oh, Adele and, uh, Serena have like this like very choreographed like— yes, shooting back, dual pistols.

They're both blasting. That's what she said. Yeah.

And so right when that— so right when they're about to be overrun by this military force, uh, we find out where the number 9 was.

Oh, this was crazy. Yeah, yeah, I couldn't believe it. Yeah, out of nowhere.

With a rocket launcher.

Yeah, or grenades or something. Yeah, I don't know, whatever it is.

Yeah, and his, his thing when it pops up on the screen says he's been sitting there for 10 years waiting for someone to press 9. So he's been in Detroit this whole time just waiting for somebody to dial 9. Yep.

You know, surely it would've happened on accident at some point. Yeah. Uh, but yeah, he takes out—

what's his name? Terry Stone or something like that? Is that what it was?

I don't know. Uh, Darius Stone. Darius Stone. I wish it was Terry Stone.

That'd be cool. Terry Stone. Yeah, that's you, Terry. Terry Stone. Terry Stone.

Oh yeah. Yeah.

So he, so he blows up everybody, saves the day there.

Yeah, he does, in the most Ice Cube way ever. And he talks just like Ice Cube, like he's reading the lines off a cue card.

He's got a very specific style that he does every single thing in.

He's got a certain set of skills.

Yep. Uh, he kills everyone. Donnie Yen gets shot.

Yep, in the plane. Okay, again, so this is gonna— this is gonna bother me here at this point. Um, So Donnie Yen gets shot. He then though, like, makes it so that he opens the back hangar. Yep. He manages to somehow connect Toni Collette to one of the things to fly out without a parachute.

Yep. She gets dragged out of the plane.

Um, Xander Cage doesn't know the back thing is open as he's trying to— as he's decided that the only way to stop this last satellite that's coming down to hit them is to go right at it and smash it.

To collide with it. Yes.

Collide with it.

Yes, he's gonna fly a plane at X amount miles per hour into a free-falling object. The thing is at terminal velocity. It has to be. It's on fire as it breaks through the atmosphere.

And this is not going to make things worse, this will just make things better.

Yes. Oh, and by the way, make sure, uh, the DJ guy gets it all on video.

Yes, because he's gonna jump out of that plane without a parachute.

And he does.

Yes, he does.

Yeah. So Donnie Yen also, he slides out the back. He actually has a parachute and he takes off going to the bottom. Vin Diesel jumps out, he free falls for a bit, then he lands on whatever one of the crates that they had in the plane.

Cargo crates. Yeah.

That they had in the plane.

Operation Double Drop.

Yes, very much. Takes quite a long time to get the parachute untied. Just enough time for it to— I, I don't— did it really even slow it down? I don't know if he slammed right to the ground.

No. Crate explodes, so I don't know.

It does, yes. I'm going to guess that he jumped right before he hit the ground.

Oh, probably. Yeah. It's like when you're in an elevator and it's going flying, you're supposed to like leap right beforehand or something. Yep.

Yeah.

All the rest of our, our heroes and heroines, they, they pull up.

Yes, they're all together too. They're, they're all together, including Donnie Yen, who jumped out of a plane far earlier than Xander Cage and was shot.

Yeah. Yes.

Okay, so that's my other thing. He got shot in the chest. Did he have the special body armor too? Because—

Oh, he's got the special kung fu ability to push a bullet out of his abs.

Apparently so, because he doesn't He doesn't seem to be bothered by the fact that he basically got shot in the heart.

He's fine. He's fine. Yeah, he's got 2 hearts.

He's like Doctor Who.

He can move his heart at will.

Vin, uh, or, uh, Xander's safe and sound. He's like, what happened to— what happened to Colette? And they're like, oh, uh, you know, she, she had a plane to catch.

Yeah. Uh, she— I wish she said that.

They didn't say that. Yeah, he makes some kind of weird witty comment Yeah.

Witty is air quote that real fast.

Yeah. He makes an attempt at a comment about something happening to her. And then Vin Diesel pulls up in another car. This dude, I don't, uh, yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah. Ice Cube pulls up in another car and I don't remember what that car is. I don't remember that from the first one, but apparently it's Xander Cage's car that he's been holding onto while he waited for somebody to dial 9 the whole time.

He took it on a couple dates apparently, but it's safe. Um, yeah, and now the Triple X, like, society is rogue.

They're now their own thing, but they all can be at one place, which is church, to have Gibbons' funeral. And there's a whole thing. We see everybody. Uh, such an unnecessary scene. The Hound is singing.

Yes. And you know, he's a singer in real life. He was part of like a pop band. Really? Yes. In the '90s.

He had a good voice, I thought, when he was singing. I liked it because everyone was so like— this funeral's happening, everybody's like singing and clapping, but we get like all the main characters and it's like going like just rolling down each one of them. They're all just so deadly serious and like not doing anything, which I mean, it's a funeral, but Dobbins had died so long ago. I know, I feel like it's been 2 weeks.

They traveled the world since. I know. Yeah, it's—

but well, I mean, this is the first time they could actually have a service for him, I guess.

I don't know.

Yeah, there's a lot of people there that aren't Triple X. It's all his family.

It's got to be his family too. Yeah, they were on hold until Xander Cage said it was okay.

He could make it.

Yeah, I don't know, but I— why were they on hold? Because suddenly we see Dobbins is actually still alive. Yeah, Gibbons. Gibbons. His name's Gibbons.

I said Dobbins intentionally knowing it was the wrong name, and I'm glad you followed up with it.

Yeah, Gibbons— Xander Cage isn't down there with everybody, he's up at the top.

No, he's up at top, he's above everybody else.

He's too cool for that. And then Gibbons shows up and it's like, what's up, I'm still alive. And it's like, what? No.

And then did you notice that he had like glasses on?

Yeah.

But the left eye lens was dark.

Why?

Like the eye patch of Nick Fury.

Yeah. Is that the only reason it was like this? Probably. That's so stupid.

Yeah, great. Samuel Jackson being like, hey, I got better things to do, so I'm not going back.

What's the real, like, life reason why that would be that way?

If it— one of those— it's like, you know, those lenses that change into the sunglasses when the light hits them? There's only on the left side. Transition to the left side.

Okay, now when, when Gibbons goes to leave though, it's not just him.

He has Neymar with He's the soccer guy. That was from the beginning. Yeah, I like it.

Did he really? I didn't see that. I wasn't paying attention.

They walked away and—

I was so glad the movie was over.

I was so happy to see that guy again. I was like, oh, thank God the soccer guy's back.

Holy shit, this is— oh my God, this is such a long movie to talk about.

I was so glad it was done. And then when they had the, the church scene, I was like, Jesus Christ.

Well, we had to put Gibbons to rest, the beloved character Gibbons.

You have that 8-minute opening— you have that 8-minute opening credit scene. Yes. And then there's 8 minutes of credits at the end. Yes. So we're down to like an hour and a half, but it seems like 3 hours.

Yeah, it was a— it was a such a long, boring movie. I was so bored.

I messaged you guys as I was watching it, said I hate you.

Yep, you did.

But it wasn't our fault.

It was IMDb's fault for putting it on there.

All right, I was tempted to fumble you too. Wait, fumble you away.

We made it through Triple X: Return of Xander Cage. Yep. What'd you guys think? I've very clearly—

this is trash. And, and I'm— I've— I was— and part of it is because I was a little biased because I was angry from the get-go that I was gonna have to watch this.

He went in with a You're, you're already mad. Yes, I—

Derek pulled a Judas and I was mad.

Uh, just like Jesus was when—

yeah, he just— how dare you? He didn't have to hate watch a movie. Um, he just died for our sins. Every, every bit of this movie is just like— there's nothing redeeming out of any of this. And again, Becky— no, she's not awful.

Yeah.

And again, I, I really, really like the Fast and Furious movies. I think they're very entertaining. And this is so much the opposite, even though it's kind of the same style of stuff. Uh, it's like a waste for Donnie Yen, who's awesome, like, but everyone else in this movie, including Vin Diesel, can, you know, walk off short beer.

Wow. Short beer. Wow. Dang.

Okay, okay. Um, hmm, well, I kind of like this movie. Um, it's stupid. Yes, agreed. But in a good way, I thought. Like, it's just so stupid. Like, look, there's some decent action in it, but when— even when the action's just stupid, I was entertained just because of the stupidity. Like, this is basically like Derek was saying, a wet dream for Vin Diesel. Like, look how cool I am, I'm doing extreme skiing in the jungle. Look how cool I am, I'm— every woman I meet's in love with me in this movie.

Mm-hmm.

It's just kind of entertaining in that regard too, just to like, be like, wow, I can't believe this is happening, you know? Like, just like, this is a movie? Who wrote this? Like, how did this come— how did this come to be? It's almost fun to watch in that way, and it's just like so over the top. top and ridiculous. I feel like, I don't know, like the team is kind of fun. I feel like everybody in this movie is kind of having a good time making it, even if it's stupid. Donnie Yen's awesome in it. He's doing a lot of cool stuff. I thought it was good, like quotation marks, you know? Like, it was a fun watch. It was stupid, don't get me wrong, but I had a good time watching.

I did not enjoy this movie because it was tedious. It felt so tedious and so drawn out. And the fact that I missed the motorcycles on skis— I don't even know how I missed it.

I don't know.

I can tell you where I was. I was probably looking at my phone, and I just like, I looked up like, oh, the thing was destroyed, great. And that was it, right? Like, I just, I did not care. And I thought it was so laughable, the whole thing. It was hilariously bad, but it was okay in its hilarious badness. I don't know how to explain it beyond that. Like, not good, irredeemable movie, will not watch again, but I've seen far worse. Sure.

Right?

So, and, and it is such a Vin Diesel wet dream. He's like, I want to have sex with a girl, I want to have sex with 7 girls. I don't want to have sex with a girl again. It's like, okay, great, Vin Diesel. Like, it's not even like an extreme James Bond. It's just, it's just, uh, it's a lot of stuff. And it's so— none of it's particularly good. And the few parts that are good are, are wasted on this movie. So it is what it is. Well, we know what we thought. What did the internet have to say?

Hmm.

On January 22nd, 2017, Cole Waters had this to say. Triple X: Return of Xander Cage. Where do I start on this magnificent blockbuster hit that is Triple X: Return of Xander Cage starring Vin Diesel? I saw this movie in IMAX 3D and I was blown away of how good the 3D was. Vin Diesel never disappoints. There was not one flaw with this film. The action was some— this is all one word, but one sentence. There was not one flaw with this film. The action was some of the best action sequences I have ever seen in my whole life.

Okay.

This is the 3rd engagement in the Triple X series, and it has been the best so far. Parents, this is rated PG-13 for action and violence throughout the film. It is highly suggested, but has a lot of action and a lot of bikinis. We see Xander a lot of the film with the woman, and there are a lot of women in this movie. So there is another thing to think about if you're going to take the little ones.

There's a lot of women in this movie. Better think about that.

Women. This has been such a good year for movies so far, and I think they will just keep on getting better from there. Yeah, this is a great film. I think you will enjoy it, really enjoy it. 29 help— found it helpful, 34 not so much. Oh, 10 out of 10.

Okay.

We gotta see what else came out in 2017.

Nothing.

Because, well, this is January 22nd, 2017.

Oh, really?

So this might be a January release.

Wow, it does fit into our themes. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.

Oh my gosh. And then on October 8th, 2023, Wesus had this to say. This is the proof that a new movie can retroactively ruin a good old movie. Wonder what the good old movie is. Do yourself a favor and don't watch this. Infinite amounts of cringe only Vin Diesel can provide. Stupid story. Mostly fan service. Bombastic action. It's like a 90-minute TikTok stunt. Cheesy. Juvenile. Completely ruined the image of Triple X of the first movie.

Hmm.

Ruined. Vin Diesel managed to do this to all of his franchises. Seems crazy, but Vin Diesel used to be a decent actor and used to put together good movies. Pitch Black was awesome. Fast and Furious was awesome. Triple X was awesome. They all have been ruined. I can no longer take the original movie seriously after they sent a Fiero in orbit. What happened to you, Vin? Nobody found it helpful. Nobody found it unhelpful. 1 out of 10.

What happened?

So this was the 63rd highest grossing movie in 2017.

Okay.

Uh, number 1 was, uh, The Last Jedi.

Okay. Oh, good movie.

Beauty and the Beast, uh, remake was number 2. Wonder Woman was 3.

Okay.

Uh, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is 4. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

Oh, good movie. I like that one.

Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Okay, I like that.

It.

Uh-huh.

Thor: Ragnarok.

Yeah.

Oh, Despicable Me 3.

Which one?

Despicable Me 3.

Okay.

Justice League was 10. Logan was 11. And The Fate of the Furious— that's the, uh, the 8th of the Fast and Furious movies— was number 12.

They only get better. They can only get better.

Um, what an amazing year. Coco, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lego Batman, Boss Baby. Boss Baby. Kong: Skull Island, which was a 20th overall. War for the Planet of the Apes.

Oh, that's a good one.

Uh, Anthony Hopkins is the Transformers last night, was 25th. Oh God. Wow. Baby Driver. There's a lot of good movies that year. It's good.

Do you want to know what Day Triple X Return of Xander Cage came out.

Thursday, January 20th.

Jan 20, 2017. It was 100% a January release that could have happened in our thing, you know.

Yeah, guys, right? It's been a great year for movies. It's only going to go up from here.

It reminds me, I always hate when they do like best movie of the year and it's like January 7th.

Yeah, it's like, wow, really?

Okay, yeah, you're right.

So far it is.

So far, technically, it had a production budget of $85 million.

$85 mil.

Domestic box office was $44 million. International box office was $300 million.

Where was that third nipple? I'm looking at a picture of Xander Cage, like when I Googled Triple X Returns Xander Cage, and there's Vin Diesel shirtless, and he does not have a tattoo around either one of his normal nipples.

It's a weird little starfish thing.

I don't know. Like on the side of his— must be on his side or something. What a strange little piece to add, to add to the Xander Cage lore.

There's some lore to put in there.

Yeah, a third nipple with a tattoo around it.

Maybe it wasn't a third nipple, maybe it was something else. It might have been—

it was a nipple. It was 100% a nipple.

So, uh, um, we did this in— we did this through our first, uh, theme as well.

Oh yes, we gotta—

so I'll ask you guys this again here.

I already have it figured out.

Based on, uh, Alligator, Lair of the White Worm, Crocodile Dundee, and Triple X, um, how were we— how are you guys rating these, uh, 1 through 4?

Alligator, White Worm, Triple X, Dundee.

I'm gonna go Alligator, Triple X.

Oh wow.

Lair of the White Worm, Dundee.

Wow.

F both of you.

I did not like Crocodile Dundee at all.

I am, I am going, uh, Alligator, Crocodile Dundee, White Worm, and Triple X.

Wow.

Yeah, that's, that's where I'm sticking on these.

What a month.

So interesting. Both of our, of our themes, um, that we had here, uh, the first movie picked, uh, has been the favorites.

Oh, true. Interesting.

Yeah. Will it continue for the third one? Oh, maybe.

If only we knew what the next theme was going to be.

Are you guys ready? So we're in March. The Oscars happen in March. Okay. So I'm going with the Keith. I'm going with a topical theme. Going with best picture nominees who that didn't win.

Oh, okay, interesting.

Okay, best picture nominees that didn't win, and I am going in the Wayback Machine to a movie I've always wanted to watch but I never have. 1970s, Five Easy Pieces.

Five Easy Pieces?

Jack Nicholson. Yes.

Interesting. Okay, I'm excited to watch it. It's got Jack Nicholson. I like him.

But there it is. All right, best picture nominees That didn't win. Well, I guess that leaves us with one thing to do, and that is to end this movie. In this movie, I did it again. End this episode the way we end every episode. Yo, that's the diesel.

He does have hair. Wow.

This is—

Bend your left leg under and your right arm over. Kick your left leg and return. Your right leg and cross the left leg. Move the left leg and replace it further left.

How to breakdance video. Put your right leg under.

What's with this music cutting in and out?

Thanks for listening to Fumbling Through Film. New episodes drop every Thursday. Got feedback or questions? Email us at [email protected]. Follow us on Bluesky at Film Fumblers and on Instagram at film.fumblers. You can also follow Keith on Instagram at kg33lives and dadscardsdaily. Terry's on Letterboxd at Terry2099, and Derek's on social media at Derek the number 9 and the word 9. All original music is produced by the Dr. Dre of Kansas, Terry. Hit him up for the bangers. Hit him up for the bangers. See you next week as we keep on fumbling.