If you feel the need for speed and like your action heroes with more brawn than brain, then Rob Cohen's outlandish action-adventure might just set your pulse racing.

Xander Cage (Diesel) is a renegade who gets his kicks stealing cars, driving them off bridges, then parachuting from the free-falling vehicle while his friends videotape the daredevil action.

Invariably, the police catch up with Xander and threaten him with a lengthy stay behind bars.

National Security Agent Augustus Gibbons (Jackson) offers the thrill-seeking law-breaker a tantalising alternative: undercover work.

Caught in a no-win situation, Xander accepts and is posted to Prague, where he must infiltrate a group of hi-tech terrorists known as Anarchy 99, led by a megalomaniac named Yorgi (Csokas).

But the mission is quickly compromised by Xander's infatuation with Yorgi's seductive, double-crossing girlfriend Yelena (Argento).

With gadgets and gizmos aplenty at his disposal, the fledgling agent puts all his extreme sports skills to the test to save the day, and his own skin.

And director Rob Cohen is only too keen to oblige by orchestrating some of the most outrageous action set-pieces you are likely to see all year.

xXx accelerates from a chase between a motorcycle and two helicopter gunships which results in the total destruction of a Colombian village, to a breakneck snowboarding sequence, in which Xander attempts to outrun an avalanche.

Unfortunately, the stunts are the only element of the film likely to leave you shaken and stirred.

Diesel isn't shy about showing off his physique -- even in sub-arctic conditions -- but there's little screen chemistry with Argento. When Xander and Yelena finally kiss, both actors look physically repulsed.

More worryingly, the secret agent has little personality and his arsenal of pithy one-liners sound horribly familiar.

Logic and common sense are continually sacrificed for the sake of bigger explosions, and the final showdown is a massive let-down.