The year is 2000, and the action genre is in trouble. America’s big action stars are getting old, and will soon be moving on to politics and nursing homes. Schwarzenegger and Stallone are on their way out. Van Damme has become irrelevant. Steven Segal has morphed into a Thanksgiving turkey filled with delicious stuffing. We needed someone to carry the torch into the new millennium, and for a moment, it seemed almost a certainty that it was going to be Vin Diesel.
Unfortunately, that never happened. It’s been all downhill since The Fast and the Furious for Vin, culminating in his epic failure this past weekend when Babylon A.D. couldn’t even manage double box office digits. Here we are in 2008 and Vin Diesel is a punchline. Where did his career go wrong? Can he be saved? How the hell do we fix him? I’ve got the answers.
3 Ways Vin Diesel Screwed It All Up
1. Wasted time with mediocre dramatic roles. – I get it that Vin wants to be taken seriously as a dramatic actor. Who doesn’t? I can’t begrudge you that. But if you’re going to take dramatic roles in order to prove your acting chops, then make sure you take something good. If you can’t find a decent dramatic project, then don’t do one. Do more action movies. Even a crummy action movie is going to get more attention than 100 mediocre dramas in which your court case is argued by a bearded midget. While we're talking odd co-stars, you probably shouldn't work with any more angry ducks. Fonzy jumped a shark, you hired a midget and let a water fowl nibble on your earlobe.
2. Left Fast and Furious too soon, and took too long to go back to it. – Vin, The Fast and the Furious was your cash cow, your sure thing. You got a lot of buzz off the first movie… maybe you should have found a way to stick around for the second one. I know your career seemed to be off to a running start, but maybe, just maybe doing another FF movie would have earned you even more fans. I know it certainly couldn’t have hurt. And once you left, and you found your movies tanking at the box office and your performances being mocked… maybe you should have run back to the whole Fast and the Furious thing a little well… faster. Or did you actually thing you were better off doing The Pacifier?
3. Should have gone gay. – Around the time xXx was released in 2002, word on the street was that Vin Diesel was into dudes. He half-heartedly denied the rumors and they sort of went away, but I think he should have embraced them. As a straight action hero, he’s slowly faded away. As the world’s first high-profile, openly gay action star he’d at least have some sort of gay pride legacy to fall back on. Maybe Chronicles of Riddick would still have tanked at the box office, but people would be talking about it. No matter how awful the film, Vin Diesel the gay action hero’s name would be on everyone’s lips, each and every single time he released a flick. As a bonus, people would no longer be allowed to make fun of him, since in America you’re only allowed to make fun of hetero, white, males. You missed a golden promotional opportunity there Vin.
3 Ways To Fix Vin Diesel’s Career
1. Get your ass into a Fast and the Furious sequel! - You’ve already taken the first step. You’re starring in Fast and Furious next summer. Well done. Let’s hope it doesn’t suck. Wait, those always suck. But no one ever seems to care. Ok, let’s hope no one cares that this one sucks.
2. Give up on vanity projects. – Yeah, we know you love that Riddick character but no one else does, and talking endlessly about resurrecting him simply isn’t getting you anywhere. That goes double for that Hannibal movie you’ve been opining for what seems like the past 8 years. Talk about something real when you’re being interviewed, tell people you’re going to get involved I na cage match with The Rock or something. Just quit it with the Riddick stuff and the I want to be a comic book character stuff. You’ve been talking about it forever, it’s never going to happen, and if it does it’s probably not going to help you.
3. Take a supporting role in someone else’s film. – There’s always an action movie out there somewhere that needs a heavy. I’m not suggesting you should play second fiddle to Jean Claude Van-Damme in some second-fiddle direct-to-dvd movie. But while your name isn’t enough to carry a high-profile, you probably have enough pull left to land an action oriented-role in someone else’s high-profile action movie. What’s the next James Bond movie after Quantum of Solace. Do they need a heavily muscled bad guy to punch James Bond in the nuts? Maybe someone who looks good in a hat? Raise your hand man, and hope that by torturing Bond’s balls it’ll start those gay rumors back up again.
