A Foreign Service Officer in London tries to prevent a terrorist attack set to hit New York, but is forced to go on the run when she is framed for crimes she did not commit.
Survivor, predictable, short and shallow ticking clock thriller that it is, is more “Three Days of the Condor” than “Taken.” And thanks to its stars, it’s more engrossing and fun than it has any right to be.
The problem is that while it never lapses into complete cartoonishness, it never does much of anything else either, and pretty much plays like a film made for basic cable that is buoyed for a while by a couple of relatively strong central performances before eventually succumbing to terminal mediocrity in its silly final scenes.
A sturdy wrong-woman thriller that feels grotesque in its citations of 9/11 and other intimations of real-world import, but also steals a few good moves from “North by Northwest” and “The Fugitive” for a solid middle section.
Director James McTeigue frequently collaborates with the visionary Wachowski siblings, and he directed V for Vendetta. How the man who blew up Parliament in such memorably spectacular fashion can’t add some originality to Philip Shelby’s script is the movie’s only real mystery.