FORMER 007 Pierce Brosnan turns nasty in this noisy action-high, IQ-low, spy story whose speedy staging, thunderous score and lashings of cliched genre thrills singularly fail to disguise the fact that any trace of a credible story is absent.

Instead, Philip Shelby’s screenplay serves up plentiful by-the-book thuggery and suspense when US State Department highflyer Kate Abbott (Milla Jovovich) goes into battle to save New York from a bloody terrorist outrage by Nash (Brosnan), planned to destroy a crowded Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

Abbott, forced to flee after being framed for a bomb attack in London, makes a suitably relentless action heroine and occasionally almost succeeds in making her role believable.

Brosnan, sensibly, says little. Instead, he maintains a stony expression rather than bothering to bring his wooden character to life, while director James McTeigue makes no attempt to disguise the essential silliness of the affair by staging plentiful mindless action and keeping the pace fast.