With the death of Vin Diesel's original xXx thanks to some shady goings-on in Bora Bora, it's time for another hunky adrenalin junkie to fit the bill.

National Security Agency boss Augustus Gibbons thinks he knows exactly the right man for the job - multi-skilled Special Ops veteran Darius Stone (Ice Cube).

A product of the streets (and a broken, nay shattered, home), he's an ex-Navy SEAL who holds the service's record for high-diving (252ft, if you must know).

The only trouble is Stone is doing time in a maximum security prison after breaking the jaw of renegade army general George Deckert (Dafoe) nine years before.

It just so happens that Deckert is now US Secretary of Defense, a standard issue neocon so disenchanted by the liberal president that he's planning America's first coup d'etat.

Action capers don't come much more preposterous than this. Indeed, Planet Sensible seems a galaxy away as xXx recruits a gang of homies to take on the US Army.

Ice Cube's name would suggest a multi-faceted player, but he's clunkingly one dimensional even compared to VD's (love the initials) fighter of flab and champion of freedom.

However, the pleasures on offer here are of the so-bad-it's-good-variety. xXx's intelligence-gathering nous wouldn't trouble the local village plod while his street buddies look like they've swaggered off the set of the latest 50 Cent video.

The impressive set pieces - check out the berserk tank chase on board an aircraft carrier - are interspersed with very cross crimmos barking "Goddamit" and "lock'n'load"at every opportunity.

In fact, the whole caboodle is bizarrely enjoyable if you can buy the concept of an American president who sets out "to wins the hearts and minds of our enemies" while the next minute a ghetto gang are blasting chunks out of Capitol Hill.

A guilty pleasure that you could get life for.

Tim Evans