I think the greatest success of the film was the casting. Dylan O'Brien looks like the younger brother of Taylor Kitsch and landing Michael Keaton was a great accomplishment for a movie this banal. Other than that, the same old cliches of the temerarious young recruit who is good at everything and puts his heart where his mouth is, the hardcore American secret agent who is orders of magnitude better than any other secret agent, the righteous cause of the American (secret squad of trained killers with no oversight) and the happy ending where good defeats the evil and, do not forget, the evil Iranians and the necessary need to kill as many of them as possible.
The action was good, even if stretching the suspension of disbelief, the acting was good, but the script was really mediocre. Everything is done by the numbers and there is nothing that separates this film from any other of the genre from the last 30 years or more. Shut off your brain, enjoy the pointless close quarters combat and you might like it. Think just a tad about how the film started and you will see how the entire story (and characterization, tiny as it was) unravel.
The action was good, even if stretching the suspension of disbelief, the acting was good, but the script was really mediocre. Everything is done by the numbers and there is nothing that separates this film from any other of the genre from the last 30 years or more. Shut off your brain, enjoy the pointless close quarters combat and you might like it. Think just a tad about how the film started and you will see how the entire story (and characterization, tiny as it was) unravel.