RELEASED ARGYLLE

139 mins. Available now via Premium Video On Demand rental, streaming from April 12 exclusively on Apple TV+. Starring: Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Henry Cavill, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Samuel L Jackson, John Cena, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose.

Reclusive novelist Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) has just completed the manuscript for her fifth Argylle book.

She is obsessed with her work and often daydreams about her globe-trotting lead character (Henry Cavill).

Elly elicits feedback on the next book from her mother Ruth (Catherine O’Hara), who bluntly suggests an in-person brainstorming session to remedy a problematic final chapter.

During a cross-country train journey home with pet cat Alfie, fiction bleeds into Elly’s reality.

Scruffy spy Aidan (Sam Rockwell) rescues her from knife-wielding assassins, who have been ordered to kill the writer because her bestsellers predict real-life global espionage perpetrated by the diabolical Division.

To stay alive, Elly places her trust in Aidan and former CIA deputy director Alfred Solomon (Samuel L Jackson).

Argylle is an action-packed spy caper set in a rumbustious universe of daredevil secret agents who will eventually rub shoulders with director Matthew Vaughn’s debonair Kingsman.

It’s unclear how two worlds might collide but a postcredits tease lays the narrative groundwork.

Vaughn delivers trademark slam-bang thrills with gusto, evidenced by an outlandish opening sequence replete with Dua Lipa’s acting debut and a discofied dance sequence.

Jason Fuchs’ script twists and turns furiously like a cornered rattlesnake, allowing Howard and Rockwell to catalyse an adorable on-screen partnership.

For all its swagger and strut, something doesn’t click in the opening 90 minutes before the slickest stunt sequence you’ll see all year.

I can’t quite put my finger on that missing ingredient.

It’s like biting into the most delicious doughnut and only finding a dollop of luscious jam in the final mouthfuls.