(M, 139 minutes)

3 stars

As if Taylor Swift wasn't busy enough already, a rumour was doing the rounds that the singer-songwriter wrote this film, or at least the tie-in novel on which it was supposedly based. Unsurprisingly, it's all a big publicity stunt. Although the main character might have a few similarities to Swift, the singer-songwriter wasn't involved with the film at all. Sorry, Swifties.

If Argylle sounds familiar, don't be surprised. The screenplay, attributed not to Swift but to the real-life screenwriter Jason Fuchs (whose credits include Wonder Woman) is ostensibly an original, but it's really a melange of elements from many different movies, remixed and served up by director Matthew Vaughn and his team for your viewing pleasure.

Which movies? Off the top of my head: The Lost City, Romancing the Stone, The Bourne Identity, Mission: Impossible, The Manchurian Candidate, James Bond, and Vaughn's Kingsman franchise (it's set in the same cinematic universe and there's a mid-credits scene to stay in your seat for).

Not that there's necessarily anything terribly wrong with the lack of originality. This isn't a movie that's vying for Oscars or trying to make a grand artistic statement. It's big-budget, large-scale popcorn entertainment that with knowing, tongue-in cheek energy aims to provide thrills and spectacle and action and a few laughs for a large audience. It's not pretending to be something it isn't. As such, it's quite successful. It's not that being derivative is praiseworthy, it's that the film knows what it wants to do and does it pretty well.

Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a reclusive writer who lives a quiet life with her cat. She's the author of a successful series of books about supercool, supercompetent superspy Aubrey Argylle (played in her mind by Henry Caville, with John Cena as sidekick). He's the type of character who makes Bond look like a wimp.

Suffering from writer's block, Elly boards a train - with her beloved cat - to visit her critical but helpful mother Ruth (Catherine O'Hara) for some brainstorming.

Mid-journey, something happens that seems like it came out of one of her books. There's a long-haired, bearded man sitting opposite her, Aidan (Sam Rockwell) who's been reading her latest opus and says he's a fan. But when many of the other passengers attack them, he turns out to have considerable skills as a fighter and killer.

Yes, he's a real spy.

Aidan explains to Ellie that she is being targeted by a nasty group known as the Division because her novels are somehow predicting its activities. It seems he is her only hope of survival - but can he be trusted?

The action jumps around the globe, from the US to Britain to France to the Middle East, and among the actors who turn up along the way are Bryan Cranston (who seems to be having a high old time), Samuel L. Jackson, and Richard E. Grant.

While Argyll contains a lot of shooting and fighting and other mayhem, there's not a lot of blood, far less than in the Kingsman movies - this is aimed at a wider audience.

The film has plenty of twists and turns and reveals and puzzles and vehicular mayhem to keep audiences entertained.

Howard is very convincing, making the transition from mousy writer to someone who's very different by the end of the film. Rockwell also does well as the spy who's a good guy - or is he?

At well over two hours, Argylle is a bit too much of a pretty good thing. And leave your brains and any desire for realism at the cinema door: the "real" spy world in this movie is almost as far-fetched as the one Elly imagines.

But if you're willing to just go with it, the film delivers.

This looks like an attempt to start a new franchise. Well, why not?