Nina Dobrev – Tripping Through Gateways

12 years after the franchise stalled, comes an attempt to revitalize it. Director D.J. Caruso (Disturbia) takes the reigns as Vin Diesel returns to the role of Xander Cage. This time around, the idea is…”if one Bond is awesome…imagine if we had nine of them!” Xander has been presumed dead, but when the CIA is hit by some highly skilled enemy agents who steal a dangerous weapon, they find Xander hiding out.

This time around, Cage sets up his own xXx team. These are highly skilled extreme types. And they get a government agent assigned to them. A cute and plucky girl named Becky. She is also their “Q”. On their way to retrieve the weapon, Cage and friends end up discovering he is up against other xXx agents that were recruited by Samuel L. Jackson’s Gibbons. This ultimately leads to all the agents teaming up to take down the real bad guys.

The xXx films are pretty much “What if Bond was on steroids.” Except this film. The Return of Xander Cage is really “What if xXx was on steroids???” It seems like the last 40 minutes were non-stop action and a Gospel Choir.

This film does not totally rewrite the book. Instead, it is more of a blending of the Bond formula and the Fast & the Furious. It is exciting and fun, and if you enjoyed the first two films, it is unlikely you will be disappointed by this one. I would totally be in for the entire cast (those who make it out alive) to return for another round.

You can go one of two ways with a horror comedy. Either you can show your disdain for the genre by mocking it…or you can pay a generous homage to it. Todd Strauss-Schulson’s The Final Girls goes the second route, and it pays off.

The film tells the story of Max (Taissa Farmiga) whose mother Nancy (Malin Ackerman) is a struggling actress whose biggest claim to fame was a slasher film from 20 years ago. Upon losing her mother in a car wreck, Max has quietly moved on as best she can. She is begged by Duncan (Thomas Middleditch, Silicon Valley) to attend a special screening of the first two films in the franchise that made her mother famous.

In a freak accident Max, her friends Gertie (Alia Shawkat, Arrested Development), Vicki (Nina Dobrev, the Vampire Diaries), Chris (Alexander Ludwig, the Hunger Games and oddly enough a completely different film called Final Girl) and Duncan find themselves trapped within the original Camp Bloodbath. As they try to survive the film, Max finds an opportunity to reconnect with her mother through her character Amanda. This is a lot more effective than I expected. Farmiga and Ackerman connect quite well.

The film manages to have fun with the tropes of the genre and earn their laughs. Rather than go for Scary Movie Parody, the jokes are smarter and more fun. Also, while acknowledging the exploitation elements of slasher films, the film itself tends to avoid cheap nudity. There is a gag where a way to attract the killer of the film, Billy, a woman needs to just start stripping. Plenty of directors would have used this as a cheap excuse for gratuitous nudity, yet the nudity is all off-screen.

The Final Girls is a horror comedy worth seeing.

Tag: Nina Dobrev

Refueled (xXx: Return of Xander Cage, 2017)

Down to the Last One (The Final Girls, 2015)