History Film / XxX

!!Provides examples of:

* ArtisticLicenseMilitary: From the second movie, let's focus on that scene on the carrier, just to start. Ships don't drop anchor when they're docked. AT-4 shells don't go that slow or leave a smoke trail. And what were all those barrels on that tank?

** Yelena as she's played by AsiaArgento.
* GoodGunsBadGuns: {{Justified|Trope}} {{inverted|Trope}}. The movie is set in the Czech Republic, which used to be part of the former Soviet Bloc state Czechoslovakia. Xander's allies in the Prague police are therefore armed with Warsaw Pact-derived weapons, while Anarchy 99 uses Western guns.

* SoftWater: Appears to be subverted as Xander specifically breaks the surface tension with an explosion, but there's no way he wouldn't die in real life, as ''{{Mythbusters}}'' confirmed, thus the trope is actually played straight.

* UpToEleven: Stone is said to have made the highest dive in the Navy history at 250 ft. The current world record is 177 ft and it ended in serious injury like virtually all jumps from more than 150 ft.

* UpToEleven: Stone is said to have made the highest dive in the Navy history at 250 ft. The current world record is 177 ft and it ended in serious injury like virtually all jumps from more than 150 ft.

Followed by ''xXx: State of the Union'' (known as ''xXx2: The Next Level'' outside the US and Canada) which stars IceCube as Ex-Navy Seal Darius Stone, who joins the NSA after Xander's apparent death (or at least Vin Diesel's stand-in) and is specifically said to be "[[CreatorsPet tougher and nastier]]" than Xander. His mission is to stop Secretary of Defense [[GeneralRipper General George Deckert]] (WillemDafoe) from overthrowing the U.S. Government.

Followed by the poorly-received SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome based installment ''xXx: State of the Union'' (known as ''xXx2: The Next Level'' outside the US and Canada) which stars IceCube as Ex-Navy Seal Darius Stone, who joins the NSA after Xander's apparent death (or at least Vin Diesel's stand-in) and is specifically said to be "[[CreatorsPet tougher and nastier]]" than Xander. His mission is to stop Secretary of Defense [[GeneralRipper General George Deckert]] (WillemDafoe) from overthrowing the U.S. Government.

* InnocentInnuendo: After his prison escape, it's implied that Darius immediately sought out a woman to have sex with. But the camera reveals that all the slurping and the "Who's your daddy?" comments are just him ravaging a cheeseburger.

* RefugeInAudacity: Look at the title. And used literally in the movie itself by using some over the top biker-looking guy that will never made it through spy training as no bad guy would ever believe he is a spy, at least at first.

* ThrowItIn: A rather dark version. Diesel's stunt double died near the ending, filming the scene where [[spoiler:Cage parachutes onto the sub. Unlike the character, he hit the bridge. The director cut the last few seconds and left it in.]]
* TruthInTelevision: The best Special Operations forces and spies tend to be people who don't fit the traditional image of the military or spies. Also, there are several celebrities who have acted as intelligence agents. Between the two, the movie got more right [[RuleOfCool than one might expect]].

* MemeticMutation: "Two years? What was your plan? To let them die of old age?"

* CapuletCounterpart: Yelena

** The opening has a JamesBond-style spy, Cage's predecessor, who is killed when he stands out like a sore thumb in a Rammstein concert because he's wearing a [[MemeticOutfit tuxedo]].

* CoolPeopleRebelAgainstAuthority: The movie starts with Xander stealing a State Senator's car and plunging it off a bridge to protest his stance on violent music and video games/

* BadAss: Augustus Gibbons (played by SamuelLJackson).

* ChekhovsSkill: In the second movie, Stone is said to hold the Navy record in diving at 250 ft. Guess how he avoids death during the final showdown.

* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Xander in the sequel.

--> "Do we drop another mouse into the snake pit, or do we send our own snake and let him crawl in?"
* {{Expy}}: Xander = Dom from ''TheFastAndTheFurious'' with a bike focus instead of cars.

* InnocentInnuendo: After his prison escape, it's implied that Darius immediately sought out a woman to have sex with. But the camera reveals that all the slurping and the "Who's your daddy?" comments are just him ravaging a cheeseburger.

* UptoEleven: Stone is said to have made the highest dive in the Navy history at 250 ft. The current world record is 177 ft and it ended in serious injury like virtually all jumps from more than 150 ft.

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Lampshaded by Yorgi when he wipes out the team who created Ahab with their own missiles, telling Yelena that they are a liability now.

Followed by the poorly-received SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome based installment ''xXx: State of the Union'' (known as ''xXx2: The Next Level'' outside the US and Canada) which stars IceCube as Ex-Navy Seal Darius Stone, who joins the NSA after Xander's apparent death (or at least Vin Diesel's stand-in) and is specifically said to be "[[CreatorsPet tougher and nastier]]" than Xander. His mission is to stop Secretary of Defense [[GeneralRipper General George Deckert]] (WilhelmDafoe) from overthrowing the U.S. Government.

Followed by the poorly-received SuddenSequelDeathSyndrome based installment ''xXx: State of the Union'' (known as ''xXx2: The Next Level'' outside the US and Canada) which stars IceCube as Ex-Navy Seal Darius Stone, who joins the NSA after Xander's apparent death (or at least Vin Diesel's stand-in) and is specifically said to be "[[CreatorsPet tougher and nastier]]" than Xander.

* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Lampshaded by Yorgi when he wipes out the team who created Ahab with their own missiles, telling Yelena that they are a liability now.

->--'''Xander Cage''', handily summing up the premise of the movie.

* ArtisticLicenseLaw: Xander's stunt at the beginning couldn't trigger the Three Strikes law, as they cannot be three felonies from the same "transaction."[[hottip:*: Unless he already has two, but that's not what Gibbons said.]] Also, they would be state crimes and he wouldn't be sent to Leavenworth (a federal prison). Gibbons was using hyperbole.

* BeyondTheImpossible: Stone is said to have made the highest dive in the Navy history at 250 ft. The current world record is 177 ft and it ended in serious injury like virtually all jumps from more than 150 ft.

The film has at its core the subversion or outright rejection of many of the TuxedoAndMartini tropes (for better or worse), and an extended sequence at the beginning (where a tux-clad NSA agent completely fails at his mission and gets killed at a heavy metal concert) is clearly a TakeThat to JamesBond. While financially successful, the EXTREME-ness of the film makes it falls into TotallyRadical territory from time to time, and much of what it has to recommend in it the DarkerAndEdgier front was done later (and, most critics agree, better) by Bond himself in the ''CasinoRoyale'' remake.

* RealLifeWritesThePlot: The movie is rumored to have come about after Columbia couldn't get the ''JamesBond'' rights. See TakeThat, below.

* ShoutOut: Triple X was the codename of a Russian secret agent, Bond's opposite number, in ''TheSpyWhoLovedMe''. It was actually the Bond Girl, but there is a bit of misdirection at the start when we are led to believe it is her lover (who turns out to be an assassin gunning for Bond).