I can honestly say that of all the possible team-ups for a new action buddy comedy, Jackie Chan and John Cena wasn’t a pairing that would have ever crossed my mind. Yet that’s what we get in “Hidden Strike”, a new Chinese-American produced film that recently debuted on Netflix. The movie is directed by former stuntman Scott Waugh who’s also helming “Expend4bles” (aka “Expendables 4”) set to come out later this year.

Unfortunately “Hidden Strike” doesn’t have enough to tide over anyone who might be looking forward to a new “Expendables” movie. It’s a stale and charmless misfire that’s funny in all the wrong ways. The CGI-heavy action is too preposterous to be even remotely thrilling, and the humor languishes thanks to the patently unfunny dialogue and the complete absence of comic chemistry between Chan and Cena (it’s telling when the end credits blooper reel is 10x funnier than anything in the actual movie).

Not that story matters much, but it goes something like this. After repeated attacks by mercenaries on a Chinese-owned oil refinery in Iraq, ex-special forces soldier Luo Feng (Chan) and his team are sent to evacuate and escort the civilian employees and their families from the refinery to a safe zone. To do so they’ll have to travel the hilariously direct Highway of Death. A character actually tells us it’s “the most dangerous road in the country”, as if its goofy name didn’t make that abundantly clear.

Meanwhile former US Marine turned bighearted meathead Chris Van Home (Cena) has found a home in a small Iraqi village where he plays a lot with young orphaned children just to show us he’s a swell guy. The village has been in desperate need of water since a nearby dam was built and in order to get it flowing they need $100k. So Chris reluctantly agrees to help his injudicious mercenary brother Henry (Amadeus Serafini) on a job to earn some quick cash for his village.

It turns out Henry is working for an old acquaintance of Chris’ named Owen Paddock (Pilou Asbæk) and the job is to attack the convoy of civilians Luo Feng is escorting and kidnap a highly valued scientist. Chris quickly comes to realize he’s being used for nefarious purposes. But of course it takes one face-off between the film’s two stars before they realize they have a common enemy. And their only chance of taking that enemy down is by working together. Yeah teamwork!

Aside from the swings and misses at humor and the incredibly bad lines of dialogue, the movie is hampered by several other blunders. For starters the performances are pretty dreadful, especially from Cena who isn’t the slightest bit convincing no matter what he’s doing on screen – fighting, joking, trying to show actual feeling. Nothing about the performance works. Then you have the story itself and its flimsy attempts at showing a human heartbeat. There is the half-baked tension between Luo Feng and his estranged daughter, Mei (Chunrui Ma). And then you have the scenes between Chris and Henry. None of them ring true.

I will say that even though the CGI is overused to the point of being almost cartoony, there is some artistry involved and Waugh, along with the digital effects team, create some eye-popping and undeniably fun shots and sequences. But the computer-generated bombast is hardly enough to cover the movie’s shallow script, bland performances, and the bone-dry chemistry between its two leads. “Hidden Strike” is now streaming on Netflix.

VERDICT – 1.5 STARS