American Ultra (2015)

** out of ****

Mike Howell (Jesse Eisenberg) is a loser. His only desire in life is to get high and listen to music.  He works at a dollar store that appears to go days between paying customers. Inexplicably he has a beautiful girlfriend named Phoebe (Kristen Stewart) who he wants to marry, but feels like he has nothing to offer her. In addition, he has some sort of anxiety disorder about ever leaving the small town where they live. He's just not someone you'd want to know.

But there's more to this picture than meets the eye. It turns out that Mike used to be some sort of trained CIA superagent, and he has been brainwashed and is currently dormant. And when his former chief (Connie Britton) finds out that another CIA chief (Topher Grace) is planning to have him eliminated as an unnecessary risk, she swings by Mik'e workplace and activates him. He doesn't realize that anything has happened.... until a couple of guys pull guns on him and he kills both of them in seconds with a soup-spoon.

This starts “American Ultra” down a semi-interesting path as the career stoner tries to make sense of his newfound abilities, and despite his lack of memory about why he has them. Soon teams of hitmen are coming out of the woodwork and one by one Mike eliminates them (often in gruesome and spectacular fashion) so that he can go back to looking for his bong.

American Ultra is a pretty slickly produced film, but at the end of the day doesn't really offer anything more than a comic twist on “The Bourne Identity” (2002). There are some laughs and there is some action, but the performances are universally weak and stereotypical and the heroes aren't particularly likable. There isn't much more to say about it, other than it will kill the time if there's nothing particularly good to watch on TV.