The 355: Simon Kinberg’s all-female spy thriller tussles between being sincere and fun

Two centuries before James Bond 007, there was Agent 355, a lady spy on George Washington’s side during the Revolutionary War who helped identify turncoat Benedict Arnold. This device could start World War III, Mace warns an MI6 computer whiz, Khadijah, in a rusty clunker of a line that warns the audience that the only novelty in Simon Kinberg’s thriller is the cast. Chastain and Nyong’o rumble with Diane Kruger, peer pressure Penélope Cruz and are struck dumb by Fan Bingbing, who saunters in halfway through to shake things up. Individually, the women represent the differing national security interests of the United States, England, Germany, Colombia and China; their pitiful male colleagues, however — the lovesick partner who uses a sting operation to make Mace playact as his fiancée, the distrustful boss who diagnoses Kruger’s near-feral street fighter with daddy issues — make a case for the women to form a feminist Brawlers Without Borders.