Laughably Terrible: Easily the most Boring and Intensely Stupid Action Film since Total Recall

Rating: 1/10 (10 August 2012)

Either I'm insane, or I saw a different movie from the one that so many reviewers seem to like, especially on IMDb. This was easily the most boring and intensely stupid action film I've seen since Total Recall a week before.
Take every spy film cliché you can think of, take every absurdly terrible and confusing action scene you can picture, and combine it with an awkward and hilariously poorly-thought-out sci- fi twist about pills and drugs, and 'viralling-off' the pills Aaron need to take.
Seriously, the best shot of the film due to its incredible comedic value, was probably the one where the top secret agency guys figure out what the main characters are doing in Manila. The stereotypical nerd looks shocked and says, "The stem cells..." his eyes widening in disbelief, turning to his buddy who says, "They're going to try and viral him off!" Dun dun dun! Viral ... him ... off. Oookay. Did I mention that at the beginning of EVERY scene they find it necessary to include a hugely intense bass-heavy musical score, and usually a long distance tracking-over-the-city shot? Every scene.
The plot is about as interesting as a dead cat on the street. A dead cat that was run over and then beaten to pulp by a tyrannical three-year-old with a baseball bat. The big bad bosses -- who are actually trying to save the USA and their own asses -- in their top secret rooms decide to shut down the program. They kill everyone, particularly brutal in the only scene that made me feel anything other than amusement: the cold-blooded lab murder scene which is particularly disturbing because it's so heavy and out of place in such a silly, light-hearted film. And then Aaron survives the program-wide killings, as does the Doc. And then they find him chemicals/viral him off in Manila with the help of the hot Doc. The End. For real. That's it. The only thing that consoled me in the terrible trail-off cliff-hanger ending was that the film was FINALLY over. Because despite the awful, short plot they find it necessary to drag every scene out, including a god-awfully long scene in the hot Doc's big house. The bad- guys had machine guns, for Christ's sake. Why the hell would they need to search the house for her handgun, and then try and wrestle her down before killing her? Just f***ing shoot her once you've found out that she didn't tell anybody, for the love of God! I could be a better hit-squad. By myself. With a normal pistol.
And again, despite the relative simplicity of the plot at its core, the script tries to cover it up with layer after layer of complex and intense scenes, which makes it seem a whole lot more complicated than it really is. It doesn't change anything, it makes it worse. Oh, and suddenly at the end some Thai guy out of nowhere, who's actually also a super agent without all the bad stuff like empathy removed, decides to join in the fray. As if they threw it in afterward just to give Aaron a tangible antagonist that he could shoot. I think the Thai agent says about 0 words, and has the personality of a stick or rock with a painted face on.
A lot of people have spoken about how the actor for the two lead characters salvaged the film. Sure, they're fine actors. They don't salvage the film. They just make their own intensity seem clichéd and cheesy. Their characters are about as transparent as an exceedingly clean window, so that doesn't help them.
And the action scenes. Fair enough, there's some decent martial arts and all that stuff with the drones, blah blah. The scene in the house was OK. What really angered me, what made me dizzy with annoyance and frustration that the film was still happening, was the terribly filmed action scenes with the vehicles. I'm young, and my eyes are OK. I think I might be slightly mentally retarded though, because I can't follow the fast-paced action scenes in Manila for my life. They gave a two-year old who could just about walk, an HD camera on the end of a piece of string, and told him to waddle around swinging the camera. That's what the filming is like. I'm surprised I didn't see a toothless mouth try and eat the lens. All that movement, all that action, it's supposed to make you feel intensely INTO the film, like you're part of the action. It makes me feel like I have no idea what is going on and I'm not supposed to, because the action scene is excessively long and has no point, and the film-makers are just trying to cover it up with terrible shots. Yes, some scenes were intelligible, probably (I switched off after a while so I can't be sure).
Oh, and in the End, like I said, they get away just fine and dandy. The End. See you next time in part 5 of whatever we can milk out of you suckers next.