Ashton Kutcher & Katherine Heigl

"Killers," which I saw with a restful, smallish crowd late Friday morning, brings up a lot of intriguing questions.

Here are 10:

From certain angles, is Ashton Kutcher turning into Eric Roberts before our very eyes?

Is Kutcher an interesting enough actor to withstand lousy material?

What is that "you gotta problem with that?" expression Kutcher even going for in the "Killers" poster?

Was Kutcher's decision to post the first 13 minutes of "Killers," the stuff set in France, on his Twitter home page a bold social-media experiment or just a treat for his 5,024,721 followers?

In "Killers" Kutcher plays a CIA superspy assassin who wants out, for the sake of his relationship with a Type A control-freakish ninny played by Katherine Heigl. She played a ninnyish Type A control freak in her previous assignment with director Robert Luketic, "The Ugly Truth." How many more of these patronizing cliches can Heigl take on before audiences start blaming her for everything wrong with junk like "The Ugly Truth" and "Killers"?

Aside from its French prologue, a depressing amount of "Killers" takes place in a McMansion subdivision in Georgia, which looks a great deal like the McMansion Georgian subdivision used in the David Duchovny/Demi Moore movie "The Joneses."

Realizing that filmmakers need to take advantage of an aggressive state's tax incentives, at what point are we going to be so sick of movies set in the same suburban cul-de-sac that even in states like North Dakota or Vermont, moviegoers will start to picket, bearing signs declaring "DOWN WITH SUBURBAN GEORGIA CUL-DE-SACS!"?

The Heigl character's parents are played by Tom Selleck and Catherine O'Hara, and judging from their home (palatial) and their flying arrangements (business class at least, maybe first), they are filthy rich and deserving of an overthrow. Now: Are my raging class issues out of control, or what?

Haven't we seen the oh-my-gosh-my-spouse-is-secretly-an-assassin-but-you-know-a-nice-one routine once too often?

Why isn't this movie a comedy with a little action, instead of an wobbly action movie with an occasional stab at comedy?

Does this film set some sort of record for fewest extras employed?

Answers: Apparently; no; you got me; posting 13 minutes of "Killers" online is just a variation on the tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear it, doesn't matter; none — she's hit her limit; I'm ready to picket now; I'll say they are!; clearly, yes; I don't know, ask the movie; yes, and the extras they didn't use are the lucky ones.

 

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"The Killers" Movie Trailer

 

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MPAA rating: PG-13 (for violent action, sexual material and language)

Cast: Katherine Heigl (Jen); Ashton Kutcher (Spencer); Tom Selleck (Mr. Kornfeldt); Catherine O'Hara (Mrs. Kornfeldt)

Credits: Directed by Robert Luketic; written by Bob DeRosa and T.M. Griffin; produced by Scott Aversano, Kutcher, Jason Goldberg and Mike Karz.

A Lionsgate release. Running time: 1:39