The other, bigger problem is that The Bourne Identity spawned several sequels, and several more wannabes with the same agent-vs-his-or-her-own-handlers premise, including Salt with Angelina Jolie, Safe House with Ryan Reynolds, Hanna with Saoirse Ronan, RED with Bruce Willis, and Knight and Day with Tom Cruise. One problem is that this was all done better by The Bourne Identity 20 years ago – and The Gray Man borrows a huge amount from that film, including its shady, jargon-choked CIA meetings and its beautiful sidekick (De Armas, far less engaging than she was in No Time to Die). A secret agent's employers are after him: will he be able to deal with them before they deal with him? But in fact, the scenario is boringly simple. The Russos pretend that their plot is complicated: they keep interrupting the story with flashbacks, cuts to other characters, and captions explaining that we're in Bangkok or Monaco or London or Vienna or Berlin (so many locations, so few memorable shots of those locations). The truly hackneyed part is that Six is on the run from the very people who trained him. It's not just that the hero's code name, Sierra Six – or Six for short – is strangely familiar ('007 was taken,' he admits), and it's not just that the brassy score always seems to be building up to the signature riffs from the James Bond theme and the Mission: Impossible theme. The main issue is that if you're going to launch a new franchise, it helps if it actually feels new. So how come The Gray Man is such an un-thrilling thriller?

It's also got a £170 million budget – the biggest ever for a Netflix production, apparently – and it's got Ryan Gosling in the lead role alongside Chris Evans and Ana de Armas. The film is directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, who made the last two Avengers instalments, and it's adapted from the first in a series of best-selling novels by Mark Greaney. This, then, could be the ideal moment for a new cinematic secret agent – and The Gray Man seems to be the man for the job.

James Bond is out of action, Jason Bourne hasn't been seen since 2016, and, now that Tom Cruise has turned 60, it can't be long before his Mission: Impossible missions really are impossible.

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