Not much new is ‘Unlocked’ by spy drama

Veteran director Michael Apted knows his movie spies – he dealt with the ultimate one by guiding Pierce Brosnan as James Bond in “The World Is Not Enough” – but that doesn’t keep his melodrama “Unlocked” from falling into the category, “What was left on the shelf between summer and fall?” On the heels of “Atomic Blonde,” but with less visceral action to drive it, it gives us Noomi Rapace – the screen’s original “Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” – as a CIA agent who’s nursing her emotional wounds quietly in London, and undercover as a presumed social worker, after a failed mission in Paris. She gets fully back in the game against terrorists who are plotting a biological attack on England, but it quickly turns into a game of “Who do you trust?”. The suspects turn out to be many, from the espionage bosses played by Michael Douglas and John Malkovich to the thief-turned-assistant portrayed by Orlando Bloom. That’s a pretty notable cast, not to mention Toni Collette as a British spy counterpart, but “Unlocked” doesn’t give them anything to do that you haven’t seen others do before. That can be a fatal blow to a movie like this, where surprise is one of the biggest elements it has to have going for it. Unfortunately, much of “Unlocked” seems to operate on auto-pilot, including some of the central performances. Douglas and Malkovich seem to be in this for the paycheck, but – probably because it’s her showcase – Rapace adds as much energy as she can. Her biggest assist comes from Collette, who never is less than committed to any role she takes.