XXX: State of the Union

XXX: State of the Union (2005)

96 mistakes - chronological order

(5 votes)

Continuity mistake: After the funeral, Charlie is walking in a mall. Behind her there's a man with a maroon tie chatting with a woman at his side. He carries a beige coat that in the second shot is held differently, showing its black interior. (00:34:00)

Sammo

Character mistake: Darius in his waiter suit arrives at the party and goes past two officers with flags. At the back of the room there are sequined versions of the flags hanging as banners; the US flag is displayed 'backwards', as the union section should be in the top left. With an official event with generals and top level official government brass present, that's a flagrant breach of etiquette. (00:37:20)

Sammo

Character mistake: At the party, George Deckert tries to sway his old army buddy and convince him to join the coup. He says "With or without you. Three days." Within minutes he gets killed. Day after, Stone goes to the air carrier. Then the day after is the State of the Union day, when the coup takes place. Not 'three days' then, but two. (00:38:50 - 00:58:20)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: Darius is making his way through the party crowd after the former SEAL member spotted him. Look when he drinks the last glass of champagne; in the background there's the same woman with a pearl necklace his pursuers already passed by. It's like they are -ahead - of him and not behind. (00:39:15)

Sammo

Deliberate mistake: It's a really fun visual, but when the bad guys enter the kitchen and get swarmed by African-American waiters in white tuxedos, one can't help but wonder how it could be that Darius was almost the only waiter on the floor up until a moment before - there were a couple others, mostly white dudes, while now we see about 20 people, all of color, coming out at once. The disproportion is huge, it's not like dinner is being served. (00:39:30)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: Charlie intervenes to fetch Darius who is making his escape from the party; forgetting the question on how could be in her car so fast, she travels in reverse gear a much lengthier portion of road than the one she traveled to pull over by him - even accounting for a different depth of field of the camera. She then nearly crashes into a taxi that in the second shot struggles to get inside the entrance of the alley nearly as much as in the first. (00:39:50)

Sammo

Audio problem: Charlie takes Darius to the big mansion; Ice Cube says "Woah woah woah wait a minute; this is your home?", but his lips don't move. (00:40:30)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: When Darius finds the random gun in the middle of the corridor and picks it up with zero precautions because he's obviously an idiot, the gun casts a shadow on the tiles at a different direction and angle in the first shot and in the close-up. (00:42:40)

Sammo

Other mistake: The establishing shot of the General's house shows still Charlie's car outside in the driveway when Ice Cube gets out of the shower, but for obvious reason it can't still be there - the police convoy is arriving. And of course Ice Cube never hears her drive off or the complex murder setup happening. At the same time, the police IS incredibly quick to arrive. How long did that rugged army man spend in the shower, oblivious to everything? (00:42:45)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: Stone holds in close-up the photo someone somehow took of him with Pettibone by the upper left corner, which becomes the bottom left when he throws it down on the table in anger. (00:45:40)

Sammo

Plot hole: The gimmick Stone uses to escape is cartoonish in its silliness; he just puts in the bathtub a bunch of stuff he heated in the microwave in a vaguely human silhouette, and the police is fooled into thinking that that mass of heat their thermal scanners pick up is him. That's of course idiotic on many levels; a bunch of slabs of meat and hot pocket boxes, all heated at different times, is not gonna look at all like human temperature, and we also have to assume the extraordinary circumstance that the police switched on the scanner only whenever XXX was ready for this trick and not much earlier when he was talking with the agent or preparing the bathtub enchillada. They even show the scanner already on when Agent Kyle Christopher Steele is walking out. (00:46:20)

Sammo

Other mistake: Ice Cube just got 'home' after the umpteenth inexplicable escape from the police (he was surrounded by the police with 10 miles radius of roadblocks and they found out about his escape almost instantaneously). The same newscast that reports Pettibone's death reports also that his troops are en route for the funeral. That means that the funeral has been already booked quite literally when his body is still warm. (00:47:50)

Sammo

Factual error: Stone sneaks aboard the USS Independence (CVA-62) to investigate the bad guy's arms cache..yet, when he dives into the water, he is jumping off the USS Hornet (CVS-12). (00:50:35 - 00:57:45)

Continuity mistake: When Darius Stone is first infiltrating the carrier ship, he climbs out of the water onto a chain. In long shots he is still wet, but close-ups show that he is dry. (00:51:00)

Continuity mistake: Following Charlie inside the ship, Darius assaults a guard conking his head against the wall. In the first shot the guy loses instantly his cap, but in the wider angle he has his cap on his head almost all the way to the floor. (00:52:35)

Sammo

Audio problem: When Stone runs away from the cells where Gibbons, Harris and Jackson are, there's a guard in his pursuit super-close, but in the next shot he's battling a guard to the totally opposite end of the corridor - if he locked the door or managed to kick the guy back, we did not get to hear it, only Samuel Jackson yelling. (00:53:20)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: When Samuel Jackson yells at XXX to leave them in the cell, he is leaning against the wall in the wide shot, has his arm across the bars in the previous. (00:53:20)

Sammo

Continuity mistake: Darius Stone pimpslaps Charlie Mayweather unconscious. She falls with her left foot under her calf, but she adjusted to a more comfortable position with her leg stretched and one hand up when a second later the guards open the hatch. (00:53:20)

Sammo

Revealing mistake: On the receiving end of a prison sex joke, 'Sergeant' Cobb shouts irate to his men to kill Stone. An RPG is fired at him but Stone apparently makes a tank as maneuverable as a bike and just dodges it. The rocket hits a truck, but if you look at the trajectory, the CGI rocket gets inside the truck making it explode from the inside without breaking the side of the truck itself, which is pure witchcraft. (00:54:45)

Sammo

Revealing mistake: Aboard his M2 Bradley Stone dodges the other tank's cannon shot, which destroys the helicopter without piercing its outer frame; the helicopter simply implodes. (00:55:10)

Sammo

Agent Toby Lee Shavers: You know, if we're gonna be working together, you should work on your partner skills just a lil' bit? Like if you want something try "Please", "May I borrow?"
Darius Stone: Please, may I borrow the binoculars... before I kick your teeth in?
Agent Toby Lee Shavers: OK see, that's a start.
(00:33:15)

Sammo

More quotes from XXX: State of the Union

Trivia: Rob Cohen (director of the first film) and Vin Diesel (star of the first film) had both signed on to work on this sequel. Cohen had even begun early work on the project, after having very much enjoyed working on the first film. However, due to time constraints and scheduling conflicts with other projects, both had to drop out of their respective roles, and Diesel Xander was unceremoniously "killed off." Both Diesel and Cohen were unsatisfied with this film, with Diesel in particular expressing an interest to return. Diesel later brought the series back with 2017's "xXx: Return of Xander Cage."

More trivia for XXX: State of the Union

Question: Why does Stone shoot at the water after he jumps from the train?

Answer: To break the surface of the water making an easier penetration. Hitting water at high speeds can be like hitting concrete. By stirring up the water it "softens" the impact.

EMTurbo

More questions & answers from XXX: State of the Union

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