OR, how extreme sports saved the world...

There's a new Bond film just around the corner and to whet your appetite here comes musclebound hulk Vin Diesel to warn Double Old Seven that there's a new guy in town. And he's got a new set of rules.

xXx is, to all intents and purposes, a Bond film without the sophistication. Where Bond is all winning smiles and easy charm, Xander Cage (Diesel) is a finger-flippin', crazy stuntin' action man with a massive anti-authoritarian chip on his shoulder to boot.

Plucked from the streets, webcam hero Cage is thrown into a secret service testing program by his mentor "Gibbons, Augustus Gibbons" (Samuel L Jackson even allows himself a smirk as he delivers that line). Having proven himself more than up to the job he is sent on a mission to Prague to bring down an anarchist group dedicated to blowing up the world's major cities.

Will he succeed? Will he get the girl? Will he live? Will there be a sequel?

You know the answers already, but that doesn't make getting to the end of the film any less fun. Director Rob Cohen makes the most of Diesel's extremely limited ability, putting him in the way of all kinds of danger from avalanches, bad guys, motorbikes, helicopters, more bad guys and even more bad guys.

As an action hero, Xander Cage speaks loudly to a generation that has no time for the finer points of the James Bond Style. They like Red Bull rather than vodka martini, body piercing rather than Pierce Brosnan and thumb rings rather than dickie bows. They're not too interested in sex, but love a gadget or two.

Cage looks uncomfortable around the women in his movie debut and Diesel almost freezes when locked in tight with love interest Yelena (Asia Argento).

He's not helped by Rich Wilkes' clunky script and Cohen's rudderless direction away from the big action sequences. Fortunately there are more than enough big scenes to deflect attention from the film's many shortcomings.

Not bad then. It may be fast food to Bond's silver service, but even the most ardent gastronome fancies a quick burger from time to time.

see it at UCI, Odeon