One unkind soul once suggested that the reason America wages so many wars is to give its stay-at-home people a sense of global geography.

Here xXx director Rob Cohen kicks off so many conflicts across international time zones that it's difficult to keep track where it's going to go off next.

First, a squadron of US Stealth fighters razes an office block in Rangoon and then detonates a small nuclear explosion in Tajikistan.

Moving on, it takes out two Russian jets in Moscow air space before going off on one in North Korea during a search-and-rescue mission.

Yes, it's that wish-fulfillment world where America sternly plays the global policeman, keeping an eye on rogue states and maintaining a lid on dodgy terrorist cells (they wish).

Josh Lucas is the blue-eyed team leader while Jessica Biel - in what looks like a khaki Prada jumpsuit - and laydeez man Jamie Foxx are his trusted wingmen.

It's all going tickety-boo...until slimy commanding officer George Cummings (Shepard) introduces them to their new colleague.

He's EDI - an Extreme Deep Invader - who's computer-controlled and bizarrely resembles a cockroach...and is just as difficult to destroy.

You get an inkling that EDI isn't going to play the game when he downloads every music file on the Internet and then starts bleeping malevolently.

Sure enough, he decides to go AWOL, shooting up a convoy of nuclear warheads in China and then moving on to Russia for more aerial dirty tricks.

It's up to Lucas and co to take him out...but they've got to catch the hypersonic blighter first.

For spotty fans of "Boys-and-their-toys" type armageddon scenarios, this will play as refreshingly as a wave of Clearasil.

However, there's something vaguely obscene in the gung-ho glorification of extremely lethal military hardware piloted by GAP models taking a break between catwalk assignments.

It looks great - like a computer-generated advert for a giant Gillette razor - but lacks the self-mockery which would have lent it a human dimension.

Think Team America: World Police...with the jokes taken out and played straight.

Tim Evans