Argylle
Argylle
Starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Henry Cavill
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) is a successful novelist who lives in an isolated home with her cat Alfie and doesn't have any social life. Her novels are based around super spy Agent Argylle (Henry Cavill) who has been the main character in five of her recent novels, but as she prepares to write the sixth she finds herself with writer's block. She heads home to visit her mother Ruth (Catherine O'Hara) on the train when she meets Aidan (Sam Rockwell), an actual spy, who rescues her from a gang of thugs. He tells Elly that her novels seemingly predict the future, and a shadow organization known as the Division led by Ritter (Bryan Cranston) wants Elly to find a Masterkey that would expose the organization if it fell into the good hands. So Elly and Aidan - and Alfie - embark on an across the world adventure searching for the key while coming under attack by the Division, leaving Elly questioning everything she knows that she thinks is true, and leaving her with very few people to trust.
The Good:
If you're a fan of spy movies you'll probably enjoy "Argylle" enough to give it a watch, especially afterward it'll give you a fonder feel for the numerous other spy films it steals its ideas from.
To its credit, the film does go full force into its own farce, leaving me laughing numerous times not just from the performances but the sheer outlandish story I was witnessing. It was like I was watching six movies at once, and felt like it too.
Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell had great comedic chemistry, and both were superb in their performances before it nosedived in the final act.
Bryan Cranston is always the consummate professional, be it in his excellent roles in television series like "Malcolm in the Middle" or "Breaking Bad" to his Oscar-nominated role in "Trumbo" and even his fake-out supposedly starring role-turned cameo in "Godzilla," and "Argylle" is no different. He makes what on paper seemed a one-note villain into something more, and the film was better for it. Ditto the always amazing Catherine O'Hara as Elly's mother, who's comedic timing is always on point. Samuel L. Jackson also steals the show as the one who introduces Elly to the "real Agent Argylle" which I heard numerous times in the trailer.
Matthew Vaughn created a new spy world with "Kingsman," and the grace that I had for him crafting that world gave me a softer rose-colored tint on this film, where I actually did find myself enjoying myself for the first hour and half or so, while the following hour or so left me with my eyes almost on the floor with all the rolling they did.
The Bad:
When I first saw the trailer in the long-ago time, there was no rating for it, and obviously I figured it'd be rated R to go with Vaughn's "Kingsman" films. To my shock and horror I found that it was PG-13, but once my original shock wore off I thought that maybe he'd be able to pull it through. I was wrong. The rating severely hampered the story, as numerous men get shot with no blood, making it a less-than-exciting outing and I hope there's an R-rated cut out there somewhere that could possibly salvage it.
There's been a lot said about terrible CGI, and "Argylle" is no different. The beginning is a fictionalized version of the Argylle story where Dua Lipa's character zips through the roads in Greece and Henry Cavill's Argylle drives over the rooftops in a Jeep, and the CGI is truly abysmal, looking more cartoonish than anything. Then there's the cat, which would've been cute if not for the, again, God-awful CGI accompanying it.
While Vaughn expertly directed intense action sequences for his "Kingsman" films, it seems like he phoned it in for "Argylle," giving a B-reel feel in the numerous action sequences, especially the fight on the train, which looked like everyone was half asleep during it.
Writer Jason Fuchs gave no Fu**s with his storytelling, as he apparently took scripts from "Manchurian Candidate," "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," "Romancing the Stone," "Memento," "The Lost City," "National Treasure," "The Long Kiss Goodnight," every Bourne movie, and every Bond movie (and, believe it or not, "I, Tonya" I'm sure) - not to mention hints of Vaughn's "Kingsman" series - into a blender and out popped "Argylle." There was nothing original in the story whatsoever, and, worse, pales in comparison to their much-better originals.
There was a "Robot Chicken" episode that skewered M. Night Shyamalan as being the man with all the twists, something that was also spoofed in the South Park episode "Imaginationland," and apparently Fuchs took this as a personal challenge and told Shyamalan to hold his beer. While at first the film was straightforward (to a point), once we get the first twist it wasn't all that bad, but then there was another, and another, and another, and another to the point where you needed Charlie Day from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" to connect them all together. What's worse is that each twist was more nonsensical than the last, eliminating any goodwill that the original story had. I even forgot I was watching the same movie, and started to fondly remember the beginning of it, forgetting that it's the same movie. It felt that long, like Vaughn was holding us hostage and forcing us to sit through everything he wanted to express to show that he's the hip, trendy spy director for our generation. It even culminates on a cargo ship with shoddy CGI, much like 2023's maligned "Expend4bles" which made me giggle, thinking that's twice that a subpar action movie takes place on a cargo ship, which in all reality isn't that rare but it's shocking it happened twice.
On top of recycling other spy films, "Argylle" also exasperates the tropes of the subgenre. There's the Macguffin in the form of the Masterkey that's never fully explained except the fact that it can bring the Division down, and the Deus Ex Machina in the finale that's laughably bad. Again, it's just a hodgepodge of every spy action movie out there, trying to dress itself as something more original.
The Summary:
While there's some good action sequences and decent performances by a cast that seems more willing to accept the mundane than we are, "Argylle" is hampered by a bland script, numerous nonsensical twists, and shoddy CGI that results in a subpar return for the formerly praised director Matthew Vaughn.
The Score: C
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