LONDON: If, like most people, you checked out the trailer for Amazon Prime’s new action comedy “Jolt,” you’ll have saved yourself from sitting through the first five minutes of this entertaining, if somewhat predictable, beat-em-up movie in which an off-screen narrator explains that seemingly sweet kid Lindy suffers from uncontrollable bouts of rage and cortisone-fueled superstrength that only a self-administered electric shock (the jolt of the title) can quell.
Flash-forward past the exposition-heavy intro and Lindy, now played by Kate Beckinsale, continues to zap herself out of flashes of unwarranted violence and fantasizes about killing her therapist, played by Stanley Tucci.
Kate Beckinsale is a blast, clearly having fun with upending the tired trope of repressed female fury. Supplied
After such a laborious setup, director Tanya Wexler eventually gets to the good stuff. Lindy meets a nice guy on a blind date, only for him to wind up dead — so she decides to stop zapping herself back to calmness, and instead punch her way to whomever is responsible.
The premise is akin to a zany “Taken” and, thankfully, doesn’t take itself too seriously. Beckinsale is a blast, clearly having fun with upending the tired trope of repressed female fury as she quips and scissor-kicks her way to the men responsible for her murdered beau. What’s more, she’s ably backed by a stellar supporting cast, including Bobby Cannavale, Laverne Cox, Jai Courtney and Susan Sarandon.
“Jolt” is fun, rather than dumb, because, like Beckinsale, the talented cast see it for what it is — 90 minutes of ass-kicking, physics-defying, nonsensical setups for Lindy to beat the snot out of roomfuls of nameless, cookie-cutter male stooges. There’s a well-signposted twist that won’t surprise many, and a setup for a sequel (probably a franchise) once the dust has, quite literally, settled. But you know what? If it stays this silly, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
