For the past couple of years the summer movie season has kicked off early in the spring. The big screen adaptation of Clive Cussler’s "Sahara" opened a few weeks ago, and this week Ice Cube and director Lee Tamahori take over the "XXX" franchise from original star Vin Diesel and director Rob Cohen ("The Fast and the Furious" and the upcoming "Stealth").

Their resulting collaboration, "XXX: State of the Union" — unapologetic for its over-the-top bravado and loudness — is easily superior to the first "XXX" film as far as action-packed popcorn fare goes. And it doesn’t hurt that the addition of both Ice Cube and Willem Dafoe to the cast, with returning star Samuel L. Jackson, elevates the film’s cool factor, considerably.

With Vin Diesel’s character, Xander Cage, MIA this time out, the filmmakers faced a daunting task in finding a suitable replacement. Suffice it to say they hit the jackpot with Ice Cube, who proves to be more than up to the task of headlining an action movie.

On the run after narrowly escaping an ambush on the top-secret headquarters of the National Security Agency (NSA), head agent Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) is in need of another renegade recruit to thwart an assassination attempt on the sitting US President (Peter Strauss) by insurgents within the government.

He finds the perfect man for the job in prison inmate #3655, a.k.a. Darius Stone (Ice Cube), a former Special Ops soldier and ally serving 20 years for insubordination, among other counts. Eager to relocate, Stone accepts Gibbons’ offer despite their turbulent history, and in one of the film’s most visually arresting action sequences, takes on a host of guards in an "only in the movies" prison break.

Back out in the real world, Stone, "the new XXX," works closely with Gibbons and gadget expert Toby Lee Shavers (Michael Roof, reprising his "XXX" role) to expose the bad guys and seeks out two well-connected friends (Nona Gaye and Xhibit) to assist him. Their mission is complicated by an up-and-coming FBI agent (Scott Speedman) hot on Stone’s trail, not to mention by the questionable ethics of the Secretary of Defense (Willem Dafoe), who has ties to both Gibbons and Stone. As details of the planned coup d’etat come to light, the chain of command goes higher, and the reasons much more sinister and personal.

Directed by Lee Tamahori ("Once Were Warriors" and "Die Another Day"), "XXX: State of the Union" is like a live-action video game that even a "set in her ways" grandma would find entertaining. The filmmakers are smart enough to know that in this post-9/11 world any film featuring a plot that places the security of the US government in peril has to be somewhat plausible and the good guys must reign victorious. Props must also be given to star Ice Cube for bringing his trademark charisma and street sensibility to a film that wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining without it, as well as to Samuel L. Jackson and Willem Dafoe, two of the finest and most under-appreciated actors working today.