Survivor review: Pierce Brosnan and Milla Jovovich play cat and mouse

Director: James McTeigue; Screenwriter: Philip Shelby; Starring: Milla Jovovich, Pierce Brosnan, Dylan McDermott, Robert Forster, Angela Bassett, Frances de la Tour, James D'Arcy; Running time: 96 mins; Certificate: 12A

There's little to enjoy about this daft spy thriller beyond the sight of Pierce Brosnan looking vaguely like a Spanish pimp when he wears a pencil-thin moustache as a disguise. Survivor is played straight, but laden with laughs that are entirely unintentional and make you feel somewhat sorry for the impressive cast.

You can vaguely understand why actors of the calibre of Brosnan, Milla Jovovich, Dylan McDermott, Robert Forster, Angela Bassett, Frances de la Tour and James D'Arcy signed up to the project. After all, the basic premise is an intriguing one, involving the capture of an American soldier in the Middle East leading to severe repercussions in London.

Security expert Kate (Jovovich) notices something suspicious at the Embassy, propelling her into the line of fire as she tries to prevent a terrorist catastrophe by a stereotypical polo neck, black glove wearing villain while being pursued by a malevolent mercenary known as 'The Watchmaker' (Brosnan).

Sadly, the idea is fleshed out in a silly and uninvolving manner that only remains tolerable because of the familiar faces, a couple of slickly directed chase sequences and an electro-synth score that's majestic when it tries to set the pulses racing (but nausea-inducingly dismal when it tries to tug at the heartstrings). One pivotal plot strand introduced at the beginning is totally forgotten about by the movie's finale, ditched in favour of a climactic rooftop showdown that's been seen in countless other thrillers.

Jovovich provides plenty of pluck as the heroine, but her character is doomed to fail from the moment she's unveiled. Filmed from behind, she dismounts her motorcycle, takes off her helmet, shakes free her hair as if in a shampoo commercial and turns around to face the camera and flash a seductive look. It's an agonisingly archaic moment that evokes spoof TV show Garth Marenghi's Darkplace.

To make matters worse, Kate's friends are pure ciphers whose sole function is to spoonfeed us character information about her. "All work and no play?" and "Is everything a state secret with you?" are two of the questions she's subjected to. Dialogue issues also let down Angela Bassett, whose presence in any scene is to clarify plot exposition. "She's in New York!" booms Bassett at one stage, stating the location of a character we've just witnessed enter the Big Apple.

A worse fate befalls poor Dylan McDermott, who has to contend with a slurry of sickly sentimental patriotic dialogue as a security chief. One patriotic monologue in which he recounts how Kate lost friends in 9/11, accompanied by schmaltzy music, is pure Team America: World Police. Your eyes instinctively scan the screen to see if McDermott is being operated by strings.

There's little to enjoy about this daft spy thriller beyond the sight of Pierce Brosnan looking vaguely like a Spanish pimp when he wears a pencil-thin moustache as a disguise.

Framing the film within a real world context - which includes showing news footage of the Twin Towers destruction and concludes with a statistic on how many terror attacks have been foiled since 9/11 - feels like a misplaced attempt to lend some authenticity and emotion to proceedings that consistently feel forced and fake.

This is a movie in which Pierce Brosnan provides a glorious moneyshot by spontaneously abseiling down several storeys on an electricity cable while firing his gun at his fleeing prey as she hurtles down the stairs. A movie in which Jovovich's supposedly ultra-clever operative goes into hiding... but never thinks to even put on a hat to disguise herself and those distinctive locks while flouncing about in public places swarming with possible threats. Trying to intertwine this film with the repercussions of real-life terrorist atrocities isn't a smart move.

While Brosnan and Jovovich are eminently watchable as the cat and mouse, Survivor can't survive its lack of clear purpose, muddled plotting and execution that unwittingly borders on parody. For a film about intelligence, it's all too brainless.