Eva Green gets to flex her action movie muscles in “Dirty Angels”, the new action thriller from director Martin Campbell (“Goldeneye”, “Casino Royale”). Joining Green in the mostly female-driven cast are Ruby Rose, Maria Bakalova, Rona-Lee Shimon, Jojo T. Gibbs, Emily Bruni and Laëtitia Eïdo, all of whom show to be plenty capable of pulling off what the movie needs and more. If only they had better material to work with.

The problem is the ladies are handcuffed by a lackluster script that doesn’t allow them to deliver beyond their character archetypes. There are a smattering of scenes that attempt to provide at least some emotional depth. But they fizzle out once the characters are forced back into their shallow and simplistic roles. The actresses do the best they can and manage to add a little personality to the proceedings. But everything from the action to the pseudo-tough talk feels like it’s copying an out-of-date formula.

“Dirty Angels” is set in 2021 during the United States’ messy military withdrawal from Afghanistan. A band of ISIS terrorists led by a ruthless and borderline cartoonish radical named Amir (George Iskandar) storm a girls high school in Pakistan where they take several students hostage, among them the daughter of a high-ranking Pakistani minister. Amir transports them back across the border to his hideout in Afghanistan where he demands $70 million and the release of a certain “holy man” being held prisoner.

Green plays Jake, a hardened special ops soldier who is recruited by a CIA agent and old friend named Travis (Christopher Backus) to lead an international team on a rescue mission to save the girls. Jake has no interest until she hears the mission involves Amir, the madman who executed her team only a few months earlier. Hungry for revenge, Jake accepts the op and takes her fury to Pakistan.

In order to get across the border, Jake will be posing as a member of an International Relief Organization. To make it more believable she is assigned a team of all women, each coming from different parts of the world and each with their own specialty. And of course they all go by nicknames. There’s Shooter (Bruni), the weapons specialist, Geek (Gibbs), the tech expert, The Bomb (Bakalova) who handles explosives, Rocky (Shimon) the mechanic, and Medic (Rose) who is…the medic. They’re assisted by two local brothers (Aziz Çapkurt and Reza Brojerdi) who bring a little levity to the otherwise super-serious movie.

It takes a while for the story to kick into gear and even longer before we get any noteworthy action. Once it finally does it becomes pretty obvious how things are going to play out. Along the way screenwriters Alissa Sullivan Haggis and Jonas McCord make an effort to show the volatility of the region. But deciphering who’s who between ISIS, the Taliban, and the Pakistani government isn’t always easy.

The rescue mission’s inevitable action-packed finish is a well staged blowout that brings some welcomed energy. But that doesn’t make the sluggish trek to get there any more thrilling. It doesn’t provide the flimsy characters with any more substance. And it doesn’t change the movie’s overall lack of originality. Those are just some of the hurdles that trip up “Dirty Angels” and that keep it from reaching the potential it teases us with.