There is a disturbing trend that has been seeping into action films over the past few years. From “Kick-Ass” to “Sucker Punch” to “Hanna” and now “Haywire,” Hollywood has offensively exploited gender roles. Advertised as and featuring girls who kick ass, these films all have one thing in common: stupidity.

Steven Soderbergh’s “Haywire” is only slightly different than those other films. It boasts an A-list ensemble and coherent direction. That’s about the nicest thing to be said about this mess of a film.

Let’s start with the plot. “Haywire” effectively drops its audience into intrigue and action in the first scene. We don’t know who this woman Mallory is or why Aaron (Channing Tatum) is meeting her instead of Kenneth (Ewan McGregor). All of these names are dropped in a subtle exchange, so insistent in its minimalism that it laps subtly and becomes just plain silly.

After escaping Aaron, Mallory car-naps Scott (Michael Angarano) and tells him her story as they flee. The story is complex and unrewarding because it plays like little more than a series of levels in a video game. Once again, we don’t know who these people are or why they are doing what they are doing. Kenneth admits later that “Money is always the motive,” as apparently it was in producing this film.

We find out that Mallory, an ex-marine hit girl, was set up and betrayed by her agency. The rest of the film follows her quest for revenge: hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Aside from its ignorant gender politics (why is this film being marketed as essentially having a woman “play a man” if it does not intend to make any feminist claims?), “Haywire” is all style and no substance. We have seen this all before. Soderbergh’s style matches the one he used in the “Ocean’s” films and in 2011’s superior “Contagion,” but his signature burnt hues are now tired and rootless. It is not enough, Mr. Soderbergh, to imitate the aesthetic of 1970s action films. Also, violence is not funny in this type of atmosphere. When a director is so committed to authenticity, naturalism and realism, so much so that he would so carefully choreograph his fight scenes and shoot them at wider angles to allow them room to breathe, then why, oh why, would he suggest they are comic? Comic violence belongs to “Looney Toons,” “The Three Stooges” and “Hot Fuzz.” Otherwise, a film needs to be more mature in considering the repercussions of violence instead of glamorizing it.

Gina Carano plays Mallory. As he did with “The Girlfriend Experiment,” Soderbergh hired a professional. Carano is a successful MMA fighter-turned-sex symbol. While her experience in the ring offers well-choreographed fight scenes, her lack of experience in front of the camera is distracting, but would have been worse if the film bothered with deeper characters.

In addition, many of the A-listers are wasted. Antonio Banderas basically makes a cameo only, McGregor is horribly miscast as a scheming boss, Michael Fassbender is wasted on material far below him, and Channing Tatum and Bill Paxton have never been known for their acting chops. Perhaps the only thespian who seemed to have any fun with the material was the wonderful Michael Douglas at his smooth-talking and slimy best.

Genre films like “Haywire” are not necessarily flawed from the start. Watching this debacle, one might recall Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill,” a film with similar and superior technical mastery. But “Kill Bill” provided a brain and a heart that these lifeless android films entirely lack. In “Kill Bill,” The Bride’s backstory is essential to understanding her motives, and turns in the plot, like finding out she has a daughter, offer conflict and drama that the audience can care about.

Perhaps that is asking too much from “Haywire.” After all, the film admits that “the motive is always money.”

D or 1/5