Immature ‘American Ultra' loses steam

Stoners take a bloodbath in “American Ultra,” a genre mash that’s mildly amusing until it can’t think of anything else to do besides flop around in the deep end of conspicuous gore.

Taking a vacation from more serious projects by playing a couple of lethargic, ambition-free tokers who suddenly find themselves in the middle of a Joe Carnahan movie, Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart smoke and say “like” and the F-word a lot and eventually kick plenty of butt in a way that looks to cook up a couple of weeks of buzzy late-summer business.

Those who saw Nima Nourizadeh’s moderately successful first feature, the horny-boys gross-out comedy “Project X,” will have an idea of the excess to expect here . But the script by Max Landis (“Chronicle”) uses an elaborate wind-up to throw a giant splatterball that delivers more of a big mess than anything coherent or genuinely engaging.

Still, sensation is sensation, and there are enough amusingly dopey discussions, nutty characterizations and creatively spiced servings of violence to service some younger viewers.

The story takes place in Nowheresville, West Virginia, where no-account Mike (Eisenberg) dreams of creating a graphic novel while working the night shift at a bottom-feeder convenience store. It’s a toss-up which is more far-fetched - that a young woman who looks like Stewart sticks with this loser no matter what or that Mike (unbeknownst to him) is actually a CIA-trained sleeper agent who will suddenly emerge from his slumber as a slacker James Bond.

The small-town sluggard stuff of the first 20 minutes or so is genial enough and provokes a few laughs by identifying multiple symptom of generational haplessness; it’ll be the comedy of recognition for more than a few in the audience.

But the film lurches from first to fourth gear when overreaching CIA agent Adrian Yates (Topher Grace) decides it’s time to terminate the useless Mike from the Ultra program, an agency initiative from the 1950s designed to reprogram select candidates to become superspies and assassins.

Even with its tight running time, “American Ultra” starts spinning its wheels well before the climax, although it’s entirely possible that being in an altered state while watching this will keep the target audience giggling at the repetitive antics all the way to the end.