IT does not rank among the world's smartest ideas if you're an ex-con lying low to bomb down the highway in a stretch car painted migraine-inducing purple.

But the man with the pimped ride is Darius Stone (played by rapper Ice Cube), an ex-Navy Seal who's just been busted out of military prison and he doesn't listen to anyone, including, it seems, common sense.

But Stone's maverick qualities are just what Agent Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) of the CIA needs to combat a military splinter group led by Deckert (Willem Dafoe), the head of national security, who is plotting to overthrow the American government.

The title of this flash-bang sequel to the streetwise spy Vin Diesel-vehicle suggests a computer game and that is just how director Lee Tamahori presents it: an endless succession of explosions, car chases and flying battles.

Doubtless the revenues from the inevitable console game will make the project a success but the film appears little more than a pastiche of the original.

Of all the explosions in the film, no one is as soundly detonated as Diesel himself. The macho star's wrangling for more money saw him kicked off the project and the film studio Fox still seems to carry a grudge.

Diesel's character is reported dead in the first few minutes and there's no great weeping send-off either. Gibbons says he's had enough of sky-divers and plumps for the perma-frowning Stone to get the job done.

The dialogue is unfailingly asinine and sexist and there is really nothing in the way of plot at all.

The original was something of a guilty pleasure, with some nice European locations, camp humour and very imaginative stunt scenes. The sequel has little of its predecessor's distinction.

Ice Cube can't compete with Diesel for muscles but he does grumpy very well, flaring his nostrils with disdain at any sign of danger. The filmmakers have gone for a far more urban look and feel this time around.

Fellow rapper Xzibit of MTV's car makeover programme Pimp My Ride fame joins Stone as he calls on his homies to sort out the right wing secretary of defence (Willem Dafoe, slumming it) who is planning an old-fashioned coup in the White House.

The reason is as ridiculously macho as the rest of the film. He feels that the sitting president (Peter Strauss) isn't as tough as the international situation demands.

There is really little to recommend it, unless you are an early teen in love with computer game violence.

Others will respond to xXx with just zZzs.

Mark Edwards