Here’s a strange thing: while teenage girls are being ‘empowered’ in the likes of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse [see separate review], making choices and being the centre of attention, their older sisters are making fools of themselves in bumptious rom-coms like Killers. It’s like there’s an unwritten rule at work: build up their ego when they’re young, all the better to cut them down to size when they get older. Bizarre.

The doyenne of the humiliated 20-somethings is Katherine Heigl, who’s smart and beautiful yet consistently likes to play women who sell themselves short. In Knocked Up she got impregnated by a total loser and behaved like it was True Love. In 27 Dresses she dreamed wistfully of getting married – as if a girl like that would have trouble finding someone! – in The Ugly Truth she required Gerard Butler to loosen her up and make her attractive, while in Killers she finds herself tongue-tied in the mere presence of Ashton Kutcher (Ashton Kutcher!). “Do you have a name?” asks Ashton suavely – except of course suavity on Mr. Kutcher settles awkwardly, like a tuxedo on a hunchback. “Jen,” she replies, getting flustered. “Jennifer. Sometimes Jenny … No, just Jen”. Pull yourself together, dear, it’s only Ashton Kutcher.

It gets worse. Jen’s just been dumped by her boyfriend, and is now on holiday in France with her parents which, she admits, is “lame”. Jen and Spencer (that’s Ashton) go on a date, where Jen puts on a robot voice for fun and promptly gets chided for being so uncool; “There’s a segment of the population” who find that stuff amusing, says Spencer, and instead of calling him a condescending creep she fidgets and looks mortified. “How did I get so lucky?” she asks later, where ‘lucky’ = landing Ashton Kutcher (Ashton Kutcher!). “It was your charm … and wit,” he replies, kissing each of her breasts in turn – but again, instead of calling him a sexist pig she simpers delightedly, as if implying that her charms reside in her tits were the highest possible compliment. Later still, she talks to a friend about Spencer’s “physical godlike perfection”, obviously believing herself unworthy – and ignoring the rule that the words “godlike perfection” and “Ashton Kutcher” can never appear on the same planet, lest we rupture the space-time continuum.

The plot is a tired thing, riffing (vaguely) on True Lies and Mr. & Mrs. Smith: Spencer is a James Bond-style assassin who settles down with Jen, only to find he can’t get out of the game so easily – and they go on the run, with killers on their tail. Those killers include their friends and neighbours, lending the film a couple of neat conceptual jokes. You know how rom-com protagonists always have best friends who are loud and slutty (for the girl) or crude and boorish (for the guy) and you always think: ‘Why do such nice people associate with such awful friends? It just feels wrong’? In Killers, it really is wrong.

Still, conceptual jokes only get you so far when actual jokes are thin on the ground – and when poor old Jen keeps making a fool of herself. She screams a lot, and threatens to be sick. At one point she says “It’s over!” and walks off – which is dumb, because where’s she going to go? The film has a prurient tone that’s quite off-putting (the various deaths are also rather unpleasant). Jen is ordered to spread her legs in the middle of a car-chase – “Oh no, you’re not getting off that easy,” she replies idiotically, but of course it’s only so that Spencer can slash the car-seat and extract a gun – then complains about the James Bond-isms. “Who am I, Pussy Galore?” she protests rhetorically. “Not that I know of,” leers Spencer. It just feels like the joke is on her all the time.

Killers is what you’d call a romp – and it passes the time, but it feels a bit depressing. You don’t get much for your 7.50 Euros: shirtless Ashton Kutcher, briefly skirtless Katherine Heigl, some nice views of Nice, a clutch of tasteless jokes and a plot that’s over almost as soon as it’s begun. Viewers have a right to feel short-changed. Women have a right to feel offended.