Getaway

Getaway stars Ethan Hawke as a broken-down race driver who, if he ever wishes to see his kidnapped wife again, must perform reckless acts at the behest of a mystery voice. Gosh. That's a coincidence. Because watching Getaway, one automatically presumes that Ethan Hawke's real-life family must have been kidnapped and, if ever they are to be reunited, he must appear in this bloody awful film.

The last Dark Castle film scheduled for release under Warner Bros (Universal takes over the erratic imprint's distribution in 2014), Getaway recalls such prior boutique blunders as Ninja Assassin and The Reaping. Reedy characterisation and clunky segues between clumsily orchestrated car chases add to the sensation that we're watching an adaptation of a particularly crass beta-version videogame.

It gets worse. The protagonist is called Brent Magna; his reluctant sidekick (Selena Gomez) is simply called The Kid . Good grief! Even the Man With No Name had, well, a name.

For reasons that are far too idiotic to explain, Brent and The Kid are required to block off the exits around film-friendly tax haven Sofia, Bulgaria in a Shelby Mustang. Potentially lethal accidents are avoided by repeatedly crashing into stacks of cardboard boxes and Christmas markets.

Then Brent is told to destroy the power plant. And then Brent is told to rob the bank run by The Kid’s father. And then, other random stuff happens.

It's as if Selena Gomez took all the brownie points we were willing to bestow for Spring Breakers and spat them right back at us. And she's still better than most of the people and things around her.

It might sound facetious to claim we were expecting something better from the director of Dungeons and Dragons and The Butterfly Effect 3. But we genuinely weren't expecting anything this poor. Get away Getaway.