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Action,

xXx: Return of Xander Cage European Premiere at the O2 Arena - EVENT REPORT

Earlier this week the lady & I had a special date as we kicked off 2017 by heading to the O2 Arena for the European Premiere of the third film in the XXX series, which sees Vin Diesel's return to the franchise - xXx: Return of Xander Cage.

     After a delay, apparently caused by Vin Diesel's helicopter arriving late, yes, you read that correctly Vin Diesel arrived by helicopter and the rest of the cast arrived by taking a luxury speedboat out along the Thames.


     Making our way through the service tunnels, we turned the corner to find that the O2 had been turned into a tropical island for the evening jam packed with fans and talent and double them in security.


     We eventually made our way along the Red, well White Carpet spotting some of the talent from D.J. Caruso's xXx: Return of Xander Cage that attended the premiere.

     Attending the premiere were: Director D.J. Caruso.


     xXx film stars: Vin Diesel,


     Legendary Martial Artist Donnie Yen,


     Deepika Padukone, Tony Jaa,


Nina Dobrev,


Ruby Rose, Michael Bisping and Hermione Corfield.


     Although the xXx series hasn't quite delivered on the promise of a gritty alternative spy tale with realistic extreme sports shot cinéma-vérité style - rather favouring a tongue in cheek and overly slick jump shot bombastic action pop corn flick, a misstep when you have the physical talents of martial arts masters like Donnie Yen and Tony Jaa involved.

     However it certainly delivers on it's latest promise of Guns, Girls, global domination, insane stunts, huge explosions, lots of action whilst being a lot fun and a giant spectacle.

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    To truly enjoy the film you'll have to sit back, unplug and suspend belief as much as the film suspends the laws of gravity and psychics and you are in for a ride.

     Along with the return of Vin Diesel and Samuel L. Jackson there are lots of surprises and twists as well as a new XXX international coalition team made up of: the good - Adele Wolff (Ruby Rose), the extreme - Nicks (Kris Wu) and the completely insane - Tennyson Torch (Rory McCann) who have to go around the world visiting exotic locations to go toe to toe with an even more extreme and insidious team: Serena Unger (Deepika Padukone), Talon (Tony Jaa) and Hawk (Michael Bisping in a role originally intended for Conor McGregor) led by Xiang (Donnie Yen).

     Rory McCann would have stolen the show as Tennyson had it not been for the inclusion of living legend Donnie Yen. Who can currently also be seen in cinemas in Gareth Edwards' Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Although neither of these films gets a chance to show much of Yen's greatness I left the O2 with a hankering to rewatch one of Wilson Yip's Ip Man films or Teddy Chan's Kung Fu Killer starring Yen and Prachya Pinkaew's Ong-Bak starring Tony Jaa.




Paramount Pictures will release “XXX: RETURN OF XANDER CAGE” on Friday 20 January, 2017.

For more information about xXx: Return of Xander Cage head over to:
Twitter: @ParamountUK / #ReturnofXanderCage
Facebook: Facebook.com/ReturnofXanderCage.UK/

The Establishing Shot: XXX: RETURN OF XANDER CAGE EUROPEAN PREMIERE AT THE O2 ARENA - EVENT REPORT