THE COMING STORM

In the year 2023, post-apocalyptic New York has become a war zone as genetically altered federal agents advance a cruel and oppressive right-wing agenda.

Unfortunately for the subjects of this mad secret experiment, which transforms selected officers from the Federal Service Unit into invincible hulks, the treatment results in shocking physical and psychological effects. One scrambled soul has his "brain burst open and all the memories inside it scattered across the room." The grievous side effects have the FSU in hot pursuit of Jenna Khan, a young scientist who may be the only one who can save the agents from a nasty fate. She was one of the key researchers on the gene-altering program, Palindrome, staying on after opposing it on moral grounds so she could devise a fix for her quadriplegic brother's rare genetic disease. Together with a Brooklyn gang leader and an imposing fighter who has made the White House his enemy since being injected with the DNA modifier in Afghanistan without being told what was at risk, she mobilizes citizens and overmatched police in an effort to forestall evil plans to take control of everyone via the release of airborne viruses. Alpert, who specializes in looking into the dark potential of technological advancement, doesn't spare details in rolling out his vision. But that vision is ill-served by one-dimensional characters, an underfed story, and an overly familiar doomsday setting.

The latest techno-thriller from the author of The Omega Theory (2011) and Extinction (2013) boasts a strong whiff of Trump (the corrupt president here suffers from frontotemporal dementia), but any timeliness can't make up for the absence of thrills.