Watching Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle was much like listening to your favorite mixtape in the 1980s or the eventual “Best of” mixed-track CDs of the 1990s – the story allows you to enjoy new characters while questioning its direction; are you meant to appreciate the new, the old, both or neither?

The less said about Argylle’s story, the better; however, the adage “less is more” certainly applies when considering its adventurous attempts at recapturing the glory of James Bond coupled with Robert Zemeckis’ 1984 romp, Romancing the Stone. To be clear, James Bond hasn’t lost his luster as it finds its way into a new world, and Kathleen Turner’s celebrated turn as Joan Wilder is safe. Meanwhile, Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a spy novelist in the middle of a global hunt for a “Masterkey” as she lives her book series Argylle for real when she is saved from an ambush on a train by Sam Rockwell’s Aiden.

Jason Fuchs’ script does offer intrigue in the hows and whys of Elly’s sudden involvement. Rockwell’s Aiden is a capable agent, and the train sequence evokes North by Northwest feelings of “wrong person, wrong place.” These two elements go to pot quickly as the story layers into other characters and situations. It is no mistake that Samuel L. Jackson’s Alfred Solomon is similar in nature to the Richmond Valentine role he played in Vaughn’s Kingsman: The Secret Service, and it is vexing that Aidan feels like a watered-down version of his more brilliant take on Chuck Barris in George Clooney’s Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. These overtures have two inherent problems: they get trapped underneath the further layers of storytelling, and the visuals crush the intrigue and interest the story builds in its first hour.

This is where Bryan Cranston’s Ritter, evoking Ernst Stavro Blofeld (or Doctor Evil if you’re a fan of the Austin Powers series of films), comes into play as more about Ely is revealed. Howard takes the changing layers in her personae effectively but doesn’t convey them as accurately as Turner did, with Joan Wilder becoming more fashionable than admirable. This comes down to script and direction more than the acting; Vaughn and Fuchs were more interested in having fun recalling the best of decades past than in telling an exciting story.

Catherine O’Hara, a fabulously talented actress, plays the ruthless Ruth in another blatant homage to a classic film, which comes entirely out of left field and doesn’t play as well as it thinks it does.

Argylle is an adventure; if you’re in the right frame of mind, you’ll have fun with it. There are laugh-out-loud moments when Henry Cavill, John Cena, and Dua Lipa are on screen, and with a stacked cast, you’d think Vaughn would’ve more effectively told his story; a story that spends too much time paying homages to great classics while folding in on itself enough that the entire affair just felt mind-numbingly bad. To add insult to injury, a mid-credit sequence infuriated more than it surprised.

Ultimately, Argylle becomes its own worst enemy, suffocating the appreciation of the new and the old.

Argylle

Directed by Matthew Vaughn

Written by Jason Fuchs

Starring Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, John Cena, Samuel L. Jackson

PG-13, 139 minutes, Apple Original Films/Universal Pictures