Argylle (Apple TV+)

Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) has been compared to Fleming, Forsyth and Le Carré. Not only due to her ability to write gripping spy stories that “keep you on the edge of the toilet”, but also because there’s enough detail to suggest, like the other three, that she’s had a career in espionage herself.

Elly, though, is more modest about her skills, the former waitress dismissing the claimed authenticity as simply “research, research, research” and saying her proli c output is the result of nally getting the time to pursue her passion after a traumatic skating accident.

Her life though is turned upside down when she meets the dishevelledlooking Aidan (Sam Rockwell) on a train. While Elly initially scoffs at his pronouncement that he has the same vocation as her literary creation, as well as his warning that there are others on the train who mean to do her harm, she quickly discovers, to her horror, that he’s telling the truth.

While director Matthew Vaughn describes Argylle as an ode to ‘80s action movies like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon, in truth, screenwriter Jason Fuchs’ tale feels more like it was cobbled together from bits of a cult ‘90s actioner from the director of Die Hard II, a noughties Cronenberg classic and Danny Boyle psychological thriller from the last decade.

That said though, Argyle isn’t without its charms – most notably in the form of its two leads – Howard and Rockwell. The latter is at his charismatic, talkative best, while the former is something of a revelation, both in her screen presence and in playing a character that’s a signi cant departure from the Jurassic World trilogy’s Claire Dearing.