Generic where it needs to be inventive, and fussy where it needs to be streamlined, new Netflix spy thriller Heart of Stone is like a dry-clean-only article of clothing fresh out of a washing machine. You want to still like it, and you might try to pretend its still comfortable, but really you’re just mourning the financial cost involved and looking for something else. This high-budget attempt to launch a new movie franchise is simply trying too hard, and should have spent more time working on the basics.

Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot is Rachel Stone, an MI6 analyst working support for a team of talented espionage agents. At the same time, she is also an even more talented espionage agent working for the Charter – a secret organisation separate to the world’s government getting all of it’s intelligence from a super-advanced artificial intelligence. When a mission for MI6 goes wrong, it turns out it isn’t just MI6 in trouble: someone is targeting the Charter itself, and knows Stone’s real identity.

It is a dizzying and needlessly complicated set-up and – spoilers, I guess – is not even relevant to the majority of the film. While the first half labours the audiences with following two separate, overlaid sets of interchangeable spies, the second simply throws that complexity aside in favour of fist-fights and motorcycle chases. There is little in the way of innovative or iconic action; simply a chain of weirdly familiar set pieces reminiscent of other, more exciting espionage thrillers. Had this been made back in the days of home video, it would have gone straight to VHS with a little spotlight on the cover reading “in the tradition of Mission: Impossible“. As it is, it makes its debut on Netflix, which is more often than not the same thing. It’s the action film that you watch when you have watched all of the good ones already. Director Tom Harper did much better when he was directing for television.

Putting the story woes aside, there is a remarkable lack of charisma going on. I have genuinely enjoyed Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, and did not mind her in the Fast & Furious series. Here, like the rest of the cast, she just comes across as if her heart isn’t in it. Other otherwise decent actors like Jamie Dornan and Sophie Okonedo seem pretty much as sullen and unenthused. The less said about BD Wong and Glenn Close’s small cameos, the better. I suspect they would prefer it that way.

What is rather depressing is that the film has been written by Greg Rucka (with Oscar nominee Allison Schroeder), a genuinely excellent comic book writer of this exact genre. The premise feels very Rucka-esque in general, it must be said, but it simply does not suit a contained two-hour narrative. Over six issues of 24-page comics it would likely have gone across more effectively. There is no way of nothing what parts of the final script were Rucka’s, and which were Schroeder’s, but as she co-wrote Hidden Figures I honestly expected something better.

This is disposable, mediocre entertainment, and I dearly hope the planned-for franchise does not continue. There is no reason – this is just Netflix cash being frittered away on filler. This is not a film. It’s content.