 Joel Siegel of ABC's Good Morning America sums up XXX: State of the Union in seven words: "Great toys, neat action, not much else." He concludes by remarking: "This is the silliest big-budget movie I have ever seen." David Hiltbrand in the Philadelphia Inquirer doesn't spare the disparaging hyperbole, either. "State of the Union concludes with a stunningly unconvincing, uninteresting and unsuspenseful chase of a bullet train, one of the worst sequences in cinematic history," he writes. Glenn Whipp in the Los Angeles Daily News calls it "an earsplitting, freakishly over-the-top finale that seems born either of desperation or a bender that would make Hunter S. Thompson proud." Stephen Hunter in the Washington Post remarks that the movie "is so primitive, it must have been written in lizard blood on animal skin." Manohla Dargis in the New York Times refers to the "nitwit story" and its "mercilessly bad dialogue." She remarks that the production is all about "casting actresses who are easily upstaged by their breasts and young actors ... who look as if they should be warbling in a boy band." Peter Howell in the Toronto Star chastises director Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors) from going "from New Zealand talent to Hollywood sell-out" with this film. Nevertheless, a few critics concede that it makes a good movie to eat popcorn by. And Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times, the dependable contrarian, gives it an all-out rave -- calling the much reviled ending "an intricate, stunningly staged climax, a bold instance of the fantastic made jarringly realistic, which characterizes the entire film -- and what makes it exhilarating as entertainment." |
