Everly*1/2

Dir:  Joe Lynch

Starring: Salma Hayek, Jennifer Blanc, Uros Certic 

Everly appears to have sprung unadulterated from some fan-boy’s feverish wet dream of a Die Hard-Japanese anime-Kill Bill mash-up.

The movie begins mid-tale with a naked, terrified, badly beaten up woman desperately seeking to avoid a violent death at the hands of unseen captors (things are clarified as we go along) and swiftly escalates to an orgy of non-step killing.

At first, the movie is a giddily mirthful, cartoonish gore-fest featuring plenty of shot-up yakuza and "a lot of dead whores" (a constant refrain in the film) and a skimpily clad, gorgeous Salma Hayek (she hasn’t aged a single day since she sent pulses racing with her python dance in From Dusk Till Dawn almost two decades ago) meting out justice with a vengeance. At this point, I was thinking to myself that this could be something really fun. But 20 minutes of just this - and basically nothing else – is enough to dull anybody’s senses and more of the same for another hour plus change and you feel ready to go off on a murderous rampage of your own.

The script doesn’t have enough wit nor does it provide any surprises, just some nasty scenes bordering on torture porn (there are even two would-be assassins named "the Sadist" and "the Masochist").

Joe Lynch also isn’t capable of anything visually diverting.  By the time the movie ends you just don’t care what happens to any of the characters, Everly (Hayek) included.

The movie only gets an extra half star from me because of the exquisite charms of Ms. Hayek.

Cut to chase: Everly is a Neverly.