Review: ‘Andron’ is cut-rate dystopia

In the drearily dystopian mash-up of “Maze Runner” and “Hunger Games” that is “Andron,” a group of individuals are stuck in a dark labyrinth where they must do battle with their collective amnesia and the whims of a sadistic game master played by Alec Baldwin.

The hapless viewer who has stumbled upon this cheesy knockoff will likely feel trapped right along with the wooden performances and plodding plot.

Italian writer-director Francesco Cinquemani, in his feature debut, has essentially done a cut-and-paste job, assembling a thoroughly uninvolving, tension-free futuristic sci-fi thriller concerning a group of former slaves who are systematically being eliminated in what turns out to be a competition known as the Redemption Games.

Although it would have been nice if Cinquemani had made the slightest attempt to cloak the obvious influences in a semblance of something different, the only area of intrigue here is regarding the sort of financial hardships that would compel Baldwin and Danny Glover, who plays his superior, to make what is clearly a cash grab.

Spending the bulk of their very limited screen time seated behind desks, the pair, who also appear in the recently released — and equally derivative — boxing drama “Back in the Day,” do their respected careers no favors by lending their names to this nonsense, which grows more ludicrous as it drones on.

Baldwin and Glover deliver the sort of performances, which, like the fractured memories of those ill-fated contestants below them, are best left forgotten.

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‘Andron’

MPAA rating: R for language and some violence

Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes

Playing: Arena Cinema, Hollywood