“Hidden Strike” is a bad movie that’s easy to endorse. A buddy comedy co-starring the master of the genre, Jackie Chan, here paired with that jock joker John Cena, it’s action for those who like their cheese paired with some fine…whines.

“Fasten your SEAT belt!”

“You let go!” “No, YOU let go!”

Yeah, it’s like that. But it doesn’t start out even that entertaining. This Chinese-financed XYZ Films actioner fills its first act with straight People’s Republic agitprop.

In the “oil wars” of the future, a Chinese refinery in the Middle East is under siege. “Volunteer” security forces led by Feng “Dragon” Luo (Chan) are efficiently dispatched, load a dozen buses with Chinese employees, their children and the refinery’s scientist/director, Professor Cheng (Jiang Wenli) for a dash down the Highway of Death to a “Green Zone” of safety.

But an American mercenary who lives among the locals (Cena) is persuaded to hit that convoy by a merc who turns out to be his brother (Amadeus Serafini, and much respect if that’s the stage name you came up with, my dude.). Chris wants revenge on some malefactor in that convoy. That might have something to with his dead dad.

“Quit,” the punk kid brother hisses. “Just like you did on our old man.”

Dragon promises to “protect” the young woman (Ma Chunrui) who rides in the front of his bus with him.

“You are here to be a hero,” she fumes, in Chinese with subtitles. “But not for me. For THEM.”

Yup. She’s his estranged daughter.

For over half an hour, we’re caught up in that bit of soap opera amidst a “Mad Max” raid on the convoy, mid-sandstorm — bloody shoot-outs between helicopters and desert warcraft. And then the leading couple finally has its “meet cute.”

Things really pick-up after that, with bro-to-bro throwdowns as one guy shouts “You killed my people!” and the other protesting “It wasn’t ME.”

Yes, they must work together to take down the real villain. I”ll pull the pin, YOU throw the grenade. And yes, they make a LOT of wisecracks as they do.

“You keep a MACHINE GUN under your seat?”

“I’m American…guns everywhere.”

Chan gets in a soap bubble brawl. Cena leads Arab kids in “Old McDonald Had a Farm.” Chan interrupts to correct his impersonation of a monkey.

Cena’s Chris speaks just enough Chinese to flirt with the old Chinese man’s daughter and sound like an idiot to a native Mandarin speaker. Chan lands his one-liners like a pro.

Movies about fighting over future oil in the first “Global Broiling” summer of 2023 seem seriously passe.

Jackie Chan is using stunt doubles these days, along with CGI. Some funny stuff, some outrageous stuff, little of it believable — especially the amusing bits — results.

But his ability to generate rapport with any buddy pic co-star, Chris Tucker to Owen Wilson to Cena, is undiminished. He still plays the “safety first” straight arrow to whatever joker’s sharing the frame with him.

And for all this film’s failings, something this international star has stressed in interviews with me and others over the years about East and West “getting along” eventually underscores this big budget Chinese-made B-movie and makes it at least tolerable.

Sure, the U.S. and China cooperate to shoot up a big part of the Middle East and a lot of Arabs in this movie. But the villain (Pilou Asbæk) is a Dane playing an amoral, pan-national Brit, who hires bad guys from all over the world.

So maybe we’ll “get along,” as many Chinese stars and filmmakers I have interviewed have stressed, as if repeating some national or at least show-biz career-preservation talking point. And maybe we’ll do that before the “real” shooting starts.

Rating: TV-14

Cast: Jackie Chan, John Cena, Ma Chunrui, Pilou Asbæk, Chunrui Ma, Tim Ma and Jian Wenli,

Credits: Directed by Scott Waugh, scripted by Aresh Amel. An XYZ release on Netflix.

Running time: 1:43