RETURN OF XANDER CAGE is the third in the XXX franchise and a film that sees Vin Diesel returning to the fold. With a variety of settings and made as a collaboration between Hollywood, Canada, and China, this is a truly international co-production with a mix of nationalities propping up the cast. Sadly, it's a film as silly as its predecessors, if not more so. Vin Diesel and a bunch of thieves are tracking down a rogue satellite and come up against corrupt figures after it for their own purposes.

The film seems heavily modelled on the FAST & FURIOUS franchise also starring Diesel. There's not as much action as I was expecting, but that which does occur is overly dominated by wirework, stunt doubles, and lame CGI effects. The cast is the most interesting thing about this and all of them have funny one-liners; particular favourites of mine include Donnie Yen, Tony Jaa, and Rory McCann, although none of them have much to do as this is very much the Vin Diesel Show. Others appearing include an annoying geek girl, Ruby Rose (who played the chief assassin in JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2),a miscast Toni Collette, and returning franchise actors Ice Cube and Samuel L. Jackson. I was hoping for some good fight scenes, but they tend to be over-edited into oblivion, with only one stand-out moment with Yen. The rest is a noisy blur.

Someone uses NSA tool Pandora's Box to bring down a satellite and kill Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson). Xiang (Donnie Yen) attacks new NSA head Jane Marke (Toni Collette). She recruits Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) to return to the XXX program. NSA agent Becky Clearidge (Nina Dobrev) is a techie. Xander recruits his own team including nature-loving sniper Adele Wolff (Ruby Rose). Xander tracks down Xiang and Serena Unger (Deepika Padukone) who turn out to be former XXX.

Donnie Yen is great and Ruby Rose is not bad either. I didn't really notice Tony Jaa. It's great to bring everybody back. At least, the franchise now has a chance. The McGuffin of Pandora's Box is a little muddled. Script is not the strength of this franchise and this movie continues that tradition. There is plenty of action and some of them are actually fun. Vin Diesel is Vin Diesel. Nina Dobrev is not good comic relief. She should be one of the hot assassins and a real comedian should take her role. I won't recommend this but it could have been worst and the franchise may be salvageable.

Vin Diesel was vying to be the new 21st Century James Bond character as extreme sports action star turned super agent Xander Cage. Despite the success of the first film, Diesel skipped the sequel.

The film begins with Gibbons (Jackson) trying to recruit footballer Neymar to the xXx team when a descending satellite crashes on them.

The Mcguffin is a high tech Pandora's Box that can control and crash satellites orbiting the Earth. It has been stolen from the CIA office by four highly skilled operatives led by Xiang (Donny Yen.)

Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) is sought out to retrieve the box and asked to assemble his own crew. Cage finds out that Xiang also used to be part of the xXx program and he stole the device to prevent its misuse.

The plot is hackneyed and also rather daft. The film has enough entertaining set pieces to give it momentum but you feel that with the multi national and diverse cast that the producers were aiming for a more inferior version of the Fast and Franchise type film and this is what you get.