Vin Diesel plays Xander Cage, an extreme sports star who is recruited by a government agency to carry out a spy mission. His recruiter and supervisor is Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson), a no-nonsense type who thinks Cage is perfect for this line of work. There is a group known as Anarchy 99 that operates out of Prague. They have ambitions to take over the world (all bad guys in these movies have that as a goal) via an elaborate underwater super-submarine that launches biological weapons. The previous agent on the job was killed in duty; Gibbons knows that he needs a genuine bad-ass to get close to Anarchy 99's leader, Yorgi (Marton Scokas), and infiltrate the system. Cage fits the bill and manages to sidle up to Yorgi pretty quickly. He also gets close to Yelena (Asia Argento), Yorgi's girlfriend whose fiery personality may hide secrets.

That's all the plot I'm going to go into. Like most spy movies, this one basically boils down to this: hero tries to stop maniac from achieving world domination. Make no mistake - XXX does have a plot, but this is more about adrenaline than story development. What counts is the virtually non-stop action that surrounds the plot. Director Rob Cohen has clearly set out to make the most over-the-top, frenzied action movie possible, and he has damn near succeeded. From the opening sequence in which Cage's predecessor is inconspicuously killed during a concert by German heavy metal band Rammstein, XXX hits the ground running and never lets up. I don't mean this to sound like hyperbole, but imagine a movie jacked up on Jolt cola and that's what watching this film is like.

Vin Diesel plays extreme sports star-turned-spy Xander Cage in XXX

There are so many great scenes: Cage's hijacking of a sleazy politician's car, a chase in which he jumps a motorcycle over a barbed wire fence, an escape in which he uses a restaurant tray like a skateboard to glide down a railing. My favorite moment, though, is the one in which Cage is being chased by some baddies on snowmobiles. Riding a snowboard, he starts an avalanche, then tries to outrun it. He boards straight down a mountain face, gigantic slabs of snow and ice tumbling wickedly behind him and occasionally swallowing one of his pursuers. There's never been anything like this in a movie before; it's a triumph not only of action and special effects, but also of imagination. These kinds of scenes are what make XXX so perfectly of its time. It incorporates real extreme sports into the spy formula, thereby injecting it with a modern energy.

To center all this manic excitement, you need a star who commands enough attention to not get lost. When he first broke onto the scene, Vin Diesel seemed an unlikely star. The former bouncer seemed more like...a bouncer. But Diesel was smart enough to find roles that suited him, like the hostile killer in Pitch Black or the dedicated street racer in The Fast and the Furious. Xander Cage, however, is the defining role in his career so far. Diesel certainly looks the part (have you seen the guns on this guy's arms?) and has enough charisma to be not only a believable hero but a likable one as well. He nails Cage's sarcasm and defiant streak. Diesel is well paired with Asia Argento, daughter of Italian horror-meister Dario Argento. She's a veteran of her father's gore films, and giving her the female lead opposite Diesel seems like an inspiration of coolness. I liked Samuel L. Jackson too; but then again, when don't I? He turns in another solid character performance.

XXX, like all really good genre pictures, distinguishes itself by bringing something new to the table. By drawing on the reality of extreme sports - and exaggerating the already exaggerated nature of them - the movie achieves a new kind of big screen excitement. It points the way toward the future of the action epic. I loved the fast pace and the genuine desire of the filmmakers to create the biggest, baddest thrill sequences they could. This is a popcorn movie to be sure, but there's ambition in it. As a viewer, I appreciate that. As Hollywood struggles to outdo itself, XXX may someday seem outdated; for now, though, it's cutting edge. Just sit back and surrender yourself to it.

( 1/2 out of four)

XXX is rated PG-13 for violence, non-stop action sequences, sensuality, drug content and language. The running time is 1 hour and 53 minutes.