Sure, I hadn't even heard about the 2020 action movie titled "The Serpent" prior to sitting down to watch it. But I must say that the movie's cover and the fact that it is an action movie, then chances were that this might actually be an enjoyable movie.

But it wasn't...

The storyline in "The Serpent", as written by writer and director Gia Skova, was just boring and slow paced, and the movie seemed rather pointless actually. I have to admit that it was so uneventful and boring that I actually fell asleep about 1 hour into the ordeal.

The acting in the movie was adequate, but not something you should get your hopes up for. I mean, the acting performances got the work done, but they weren't outstanding or particularly impressive.

With "The Serpent" being an action movie, I must admit that I had hoped that the movie would have offered a bit more of excitement and adrenaline-filled action. To be perfectly honest, it was a bit stale and tale actually, and the action sequences that were in the movie, just didn't really delivered where it mattered.

If you enjoy action movies, there are an abundance of readily available movies that offer a heck of a lot more enjoyment than "The Serpent" does. I think someone yanked out the teeth and venom glands from the serpent before letting it go. It was a very bland and boring movie experience.

My rating of "The Serpent" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

Nothing is more fun than a 'potboiler.' A potboiler typifies artistic mediocrity at its nadir. They're like cinematic junk food. They come in all genres, especially crime, romance, sci-fi, espionage, horror, and combat movies. Mind you, most potboilers go straight-to-video and/or a streaming service. Typically, these low-budget shenanigans copy a box-office sensation, like the Bruce Willis classic "Die Hard." The stars may either be ascending or descending the ladder of stardom. Jean-Claude Van Damme and Frank Grillo have made some dandy potboilers, while Steven Seagal toplines the most abysmal. Indeed, potboilers and B-movies share similar subject matter, but B-movies boast bigger budgets, bigger stars, and bigger screens-as in theaters-when they're released. Amazon Prime and Netflix feature vast numbers of entertaining potboilers. Making her debut as writer and director, Gia Skova also stars as the sexy heroine in a potboiler called "The Serpent" (** OUT OF ****),but she won't win any Oscars with this routine espionage outing. A blonde, Russian, cover girl supermodel with Angeline Jolie looks, who has since migrated to America, Skova replicates scenes from movies such as "La Femme Nikita" (1990),"Salt"(2010),"Survivor" (2015),and "Ava" (2020) to boost this standard-issue thriller.

"The Serpent" gets off to a sizzling start. Several LAPD detectives are bagging evidence at a crime scene at a mansion, while a photographer takes homicide pictures. A corpse with a bloody face, Dr. Rhuar Nour (Ravi Rao of "My Dear Babuchak"),is strewn on a bed plastered with yellow police tape. The lead detective, James Franklin (Travis Aaron Wade of "The Bad Penny"),discusses suspects with a colleague when his cell phone chimes. "Who's this?" Franklin queries. A mysterious dame replies, "Someone who's going to tell you everything about Mr. Nour's death." Abruptly, she hangs up. Since he doesn't think anybody would hide in the back seat of his Mercedes, Franklin climbs in without checking, and our heroine surprises him. "Lucinda Kavsky, CIA," a long-haired blonde beauty in a dark outfit (Gia Skova of "Bleed for This") announces herself. "I will tell you everything I know about the case, okay?" Franklin drives off with her in his late model brown Mercedes. An ominous black SUV follows them. A desperate chase ensues when the SUV gunmen start shooting at them. Everybody is driving far too fast to hit anything. Franklin summons back-up, and a uniform patrolman arrives in the nick of time to thwart these thugs. Nevertheless, another feverish gunman, CIA Director Gozbiv (Richard E. Wilson of "Noble Fir"),careens onto the scene and crashes his white SUV into Franklin's car. Gozbiv T-bones the Mercedes on impact and sends it tumbling. Ignoring the cop, Gozbiv blasts the Mercedes with an explosive projectile that engulfs the vehicle in a fireball explosion. Naturally, Lucinda and Franklin escaped before the Mercedes blew up.

Sometimes, the complex plot of "The Serpent" doesn't always stand up to scrutiny. Basically, Lucinda helps out a colleague, Gerry (Kristopher Graves of "Running Wild"),who has been sacked by their boss Gozbiv. Gerry had been on a case involving lunatic scientists who surgically implanted nano-bomb chips into innocent children. The cruel villains plan to disperse these youngsters and their families among various metropolitan cities and denotate the bombs in them. Lucinda contends not only with these fiends but also her deluded superior, CIA Director Gozbiv, who is being blackmailed is familiar fodder. Eventually, the CIA turns on her, and she lands in prison for a five-year stretch, Meantime, the nan0-bomb angle is nothing new. Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dennis Rodman tangled with villains in "Double Team" (1997) who forged micro-chip explosives to instill terror. Sending the bomb-laden children to cities is reminiscent of the James Bond villain in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" who dispatched beautiful girls with viruses to various parts of the world.

Meantime, despite its threadbare budget, "The Serpent" neither bogs down in pointless details nor wears out its welcome, clocking in at an agile 90 minutes. "Mad Genius" lenser Lars Lindstrom's widescreen cinematography provides "The Serpent" with a picturesque luster. Although our heroes rescue the toddlers in rough seas moments before fadeout, you can tell Skova had cut corners owing to her low budget. Making her directorial debut, Skova does a competent enough job as a helmer. Everybody plays it seriously, and humor is shunned. Inexplicably, one glaring editorial gaffe occurs that only aviation enthusiasts will spot. Flown to China as part of their secret mission to slay the mad scientists implanting the nano-bombs, our heroes disembark from a black site airfield aboard a USAF Boeing C-17 Globemaster cargo jet. As Lucinda and the team hits the silk in Chinese airspace, the Globemaster suddenly changes between shots into a Chinese military Xi'an Y-20 cargo jet! Aside from this goof, the aggressive Lucinda, whose codename is "The Serpent," is fun to watch when fighting. Shrewdly, Skova paid an English actress to dub lines. The prison scenes where she maintains her long hair are a little too fanciful. Altogether, this serious but shallow-minded globetrotting spy story boils down those 90 minutes with less malingering.

The stars of the movie are Gia Skova's blonde hair, her breasts and her duck lips. Why do women still think that duck lips are attractive? Duck lips are funny looking. Gia has limited acting ability - her lines are rather cold. The dialogue is shallow and disjointed. Watch it for a good laugh about how bad a movie can be. I think this movie was about promoting Gia.