Together with his longtime cinematographer George Steel, he gives it both a sustained jolt of adrenaline and a sleek, glossy sheen often absent on Netflix, where too many washed out films look as if they were shot in murky rooms where someone had just been smoking. That hand belongs to British director Tom Harper, who cut his teeth on cinematic shows like Misfits and Peaky Blinders before impressing with crowd-pleasing music drama Wild Rose and baffling with Oscar-bait balloon adventure The Aeronauts. But Heart of Stone, as disposable and derivative as it might be, is a notable step up, playing a simple, sturdy game but playing it well, a surer hand gliding us through familiar territory. Netflix’s big-boy actioners have mostly felt more mock than blockbuster, from 6 Underground to The Gray Man to Red Notice, pale imitations of films that were already pale imitations of something else in the first place.

There’s also, predictably, a lower level of enjoyment to be had here but given the sky-high bar Cruise has set for the Mission: Impossible series, that doesn’t mean that the streamer’s copycat caper is as unrewarding as one might expect.

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