Movie Review: ‘The Protege’ lifted by chemistry of Maggie Q, Michael Keaton

In the dog days of the late-summer movie calendar, sometimes the best you can hope for is a guilty pleasure.

And if you’re a studio hoping to deliver such an empty-calorie-rich cinematic treat, it’s not a bad idea to hire a beloved actor who brings that little special something every time he or she is on screen.

That’s exactly what the producers of theater-bound action-thriller “The Protege” did by getting Michael Keaton to sign on the dotted line.

Keaton isn’t the star of “The Protege” — that would be the fairly fierce Maggie Q, as an assassin out to avenge the death of her mentor — but we get enough of him as a cerebral fixer who also can bring the pain for this romp to rise a bit above the pack of “John Wick” wannabes.

It’s highly enjoyable, if also laughable, to watch Keaton go toe-to-toe in fight sequences with the actress who herself is the protege of martial arts-gifted action star Jackie Chan. His character is so adept at butt-kickery at times that you half expect him to declare he is, in fact, Batman.

He also is just, well, so Keaton-y. You know that face he makes? The one where he looks at someone in a way that seems to say, “I know how stupid you are but YOU don’t know how stupid you are?” He does that several times, and it’s always pleasing.

“The Protege” has one more heavy-hitter in Samuel L. Jackson. The movie opens with his legendary assassin character, Moody, on a job in Vietnam in 1991. He walks into a room to discover the men he was sent to kill already decidedly dead. He also finds a young, armed girl hiding, the apparent dealer of all this death.’

Thirty years later, Maggie Q’s Anna has inherited all Moody’s deadly skills and tricks. And, when she’s not running a London store dealing in expensive rare books, she jets around the world with him on gigs that involve finding those who do not want to be found and often ending their lives. (That’s not exactly how it goes on an assignment we see them execute early in the movie, but it does ultimately end as they planned.)

Into her store, ostensibly looking to purchase a gift for the wife of his boss, soon walks Keaton’s Rembrandt. While what she shows him is out of his price range, he says, he flirts with her and gives her his card. She returns his playful vibes and makes it clear he can expect a call sooner than later.

What she doesn’t know is that he is a harbinger of bad things — bad things in the form of a storm bullets being fired into her shop as well as inside Moody’s home.

Why Moody and Anna are the targets of someone for whom Rembrandt works is incredibly convoluted and not worth trying to explain, but just know Anna wants payback in blood for the attacks.

Returning to Vietnam, Anna runs afoul of myriad evil men, but she primarily engages in this ongoing dance with the obviously transfixed Rembrandt. And while guns are involved in a date or sorts at a nice restaurant, as well as in future encounters, it’s quite apartments they’d rather, well, get a room than kill each other.

That said, it may have to be death for one of them if Anna is unwilling to move off the idea of killing Rembrandt’s powerful boss.

Working from a script by Richard Wenk (“The Equalizer”), “Casino Royale” director Martin Cambell delivers an entertaining slice of action fare, if one that’s only captivating when Maggie Q and Keaton share the screen.

The pair’s chemistry is pretty strong. And, for all the love with thrown Keaton (“Spotlight,” “The Founder”), “The Protege” also benefits from the gifts of Maggie Q, whose credits range from movies including 2006’s “Mission: Impossible III” and the “Divergent” franchise to the TV series “Nikita.” She has the action chops, sure, but her talents go beyond that.

And then there’s Jackson, who’s pretty fun in limited screen time. While he recently reprised a hitman role in another release from Lionsgate Films, the lackluster “Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard,” Moody brings to mind the killer role that made Jackson a star: Jules Winnfield from 1994’s “Pulp Fiction.” With the aging, coughing Moody making reference to being a “big, bad wolf,” you can’t help but wonder if Wenk wrote him as an older, reflective version of filmmaker Quentin Tarantino’s memorable creation.

While “The Protege” never approaches the heights of “Pulp Fiction” or, for that matter, “Casino Royale” it does offer one truly surprising moment and a good bit of fun in general.

And plenty of Keaton, who may not be Batman here but doesn’t do much to convince you otherwise.

“The Protege” is rated R for strong and bloody violence, language, some sexual references and brief nudity. Runtime: 1 hour, 49 minutes.