It's a pretty decent assassin seeking revenge story, we all know the drill as we've all seen a million of them.

Maggie Q is who she is in everything, and is always good at it.

Michael Keaton was surprisingly good, but I'm always surprised he can act, despite his long and varied career.

The story was the weak point, but as it was a bog-standard revenge story with an extremely obvious twist at the end, that isn't surprising or even a particular detriment.

When you sometimes read famous actors appear in a movie you may not have heard anything about, mostly the actors are in the movie for a couple of seconds. In this case, especially Michael Keaton really is in this a lot more than I expected. And he is sooooo good in it. It's the Keaton charme you may say - and you would not be wrong.

The movie concentrates on Maggie Q and her mission(s). You may already know what she is after if you watched the trailer, but there are still a few surprises along the way. Also the action is quite well choreographed. Yes Maggie Q, Michael Keaton and others probably only did a small percentage of their stunts - but that is what the stunt people are there for.

And let's not forget: the movie was made by Martin Campbell. Which is the reason this was shown in theatres in America - unfortunately not in Germany though. I can imagine the impact this has on a bigger screen too, but it is not the same. Well made, even if it has the odd cliche once in a while. The actors and the action make up for that ... also the story does take you to wild places ... for better or worse of course, but I'd argue mostly for better.

Initially I was thrilled about getting to sit down to watch "The Protége" from writer Richard Wenk and director Martin Campbell, but someone had mentioned that the movie wasn't really all that great. So it was with a bit of doubt that I sat down to watch "The Protége". Regardless of how it was playing out, then I would watch it, as the movie had a rather nice cast ensemble.

And I must say that I am glad that I opted to watch the movie, because I happened to enjoy the movie. This was a good old fashioned action crime thriller, for better or worse. Sure, the storyline and plot may have been predictable and somewhat generic, but who cares? It made for good wholesome entertainment.

The storyline is easily followed and doesn't really require all that much in the intellectual department, so you just switch off the old gray and lean back and enjoy the movie. And yeah, that was actually a good thing about the movie, because it is a munch-on-the-popcorn-and-enjoy-the-action kind of movie.

"The Protége" has a good cast ensemble. And truth be told, of course I had to watch "The Protége" given the fact that Maggie Q was starring in it, as she tends to make some pretty decent action movies. And she was nicely cast for "The Protége", I will say that much. And it certainly was nice to have the likes of Michael Keaton and Samuel L. Jackson in a movie such as this as well.

There is a good amount of action and fight scenes throughout the course of "The Protége", which definitely help bring the movie up and into a good pacing.

I was adequately entertained by "The Protége", and it is a movie well-worth watching if you like action crime thrillers.

My rating of "The Protége" lands on a six out of ten stars.