As with the first movie, this is clearly “Meh-” material: as Mark Kermode put it I think, it passes the time until Indy 4 well enough. But as with the first movie, it must be said that it’s mostly a good “meh-”. It’s bookended by a build-up and finale that are almost identikit copies of their original counterparts (“it’s a little gold man …” anyone?) but it has its moments like a chase down the tiny backstreets of London, a foray into Buckingham Palace, a nice scene around Paris’ Statue of Liberty (which reminded me I really must remember to see that next time I go).

It’s a Bruckheimer movie, so you should expect plausibility to go entirely out of the window, and that it certainly does around the point where Nicolas Cage manages to kidnap a President who seems almost willing to be kidnapped – even that’s a fun sequence, though, I’ve gotta admit. Likewise the stuff with Helen Mirren and Jon Voight as “mom and dad” feel often hideously like pandering to the older audience, but, y’know, it’s Mirren and Voight, it’s hard to complain. If you don’t watch movies often then it’s the last thing you want to waste your time on; otherwise, knock yourself out.

“I disapprove of women in pantsuits. The world doesn’t need any more Hilary Clintons.”

Thus begins the story of a man who makes Swimming with Sharks’ Buddy Ackerman look like a pussycat, lol. I loved director Billy Ray’s Shattered Glass – in fact I’m annoyed that I haven’t seen it a second time in the past four years – and this is kind of a neat inversion of the story there, despite still being based of course on a true story. Ryan Phillippe sort of does the Hayden Christensen part, posing as a clerk for Robert Hanssen, played by Chris Cooper. It’s Hanssen, however, who turns out to be the deceptive one; but not before Phillippe has warmed to him in quite a deeply human way – and maybe we have too. Cooper is fantastic enough to make that seemingly impossible thing occur – I like the almost comic presentation of Hanssen at times, he almost reminds me of George C. Scott Sterling Hayden in Dr. Strangelove or something, like the thing about Catherine Zeta Jones and his paranoia. It’s good to see Laura Linney again, too.