XXX2

Herald rating: **

Kiwi director Lee Tamahori parades the action-man direction skills that took him to a James Bond gig in the second episode of the adventures of Secret Agent XXX.

Vin Diesel opted not to play the poor man's Bond this time around, so when the President of the USA faces a military coup, spymaster Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) turns to a new hero, Darius Stone (Ice Cube), who is doing time for attacking his CO, George Deckert (Willem Dafoe).

Deckert is the leader of the rebel military faction, so da Cube swaggers into action with his private army of carjackers and street scum to protect the heroic leader of the Free World with the aid of lotsa booms, lotsa car chases, lotsa big boys' toys.

You expected maybe something else?

Major item on the DVD is a 60-minute documentary, the first playing around with the plot, featuring much byplay between Cube and Tamahori, the second going into the back rooms of the Pentagon and FBI.

Given the authorities' co-operation with the film-makers, some may be intrigued by what is shown here. Others may be very scared. And even more so after seeing the top-secret military warehouse feature.

Conclusion: there are a lot of very strange and paranoid geeks with a lot of money to play some very strange and paranoid games in the US military.

Plus the usual behind-the-scenes, storyboards, test footage, cast and crew gushes, three deleted scenes and lacklustre commentaries from Tamahori and the visual-effects team.

* DVD, Video rental today