The Jason Statham assembly line rolls on with "Shelter," a thoroughly generic Statham vehicle with a thoroughly generic title to match. It might as well be called "Statham 27," just one more in a long line of interchangeable action flicks starring the brooding, bald-headed tough guy.

In this one, Statham plays Mason, a quiet type who keeps to himself and lives in a lighthouse on a remote island in the Scottish Isles. If you guessed he's living there because he's a secret government assassin hiding out from his past, congratulations, you win a brand-new Statham beard trimmer.

Statham's beard is actually a little bushier here than his normal five-o'clock stubble, which is what passes for character development in this labored entry in the Statham oeuvre. After living on his own with his trusty dog — he never even bothers naming the dog, that's how checked out he is — Mason is forced to take care of Jessie (Bodhi Rae Breathnach), a teenage girl who washes ashore after her uncle dies in a sea storm while delivering supplies to the island.

That forces Mason to go back to the mainland himself, where surveillance cameras capture his likeness and government ops are sent to hunt him down. (Between this and "Mercy," it's been a heavy January for movies about our modern lack of privacy.) Bill Nighy, too stately for this kind of fare, plays the shadowy head of a shadowy team of off-the-books killers, and it's his job to take out Mason before Mason takes him out.

It's dull, standard action fare, rendered in shades of gray from director Ric Roman Waugh, who also helmed this month's "Greenland 2: Migration." Jesse grows attached to Mason, in a plot development that feels a bit like "The Professional," but without Luc Besson's sense of style, or the humor or levity that helped elevate Statham's "The Beekeeper." "Shelter" just goes through the motions, filling space and time until "Statham 28" comes along. Ho-hum.

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'SHELTER'

Grade: D

MPA rating: R (for violence and some language)

Running time: 1:47

How to watch: Now in theaters

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