Argylle: Film Review
As a fan of Kick-Ass and Kingsman: The Secret Service, I have always defended Matthew Vaughn – but I cannot do that with his latest spy caper Argylle.
The story follows reclusive author Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard), who writes a spy novel series starring a fictional secret agent named Argylle (Henry Cavill). She becomes involved in the real world of espionage when her books come a little too close to the truth. An undercover agent named Aidan (Sam Rockwell) tries to protect Elly from a sinister underground syndicate and get her to write another chapter of her novel to help them find a top-secret file.
The trailer only shows footage from the first 15-20 minutes of Argylle because there are many twists and turns in this story. Some are good, some are very silly, but there are certainly too many. As a result, the narrative is muddled, convoluted and confusing. If you can understand what’s going on, I salute you!
The screenplay, written by Jason Fuchs, is really rather poor. It is cliched and cheesy and borrows from many other spy capers, which makes sense in the context of the Cavill scenes but not everywhere else. While I liked the revelations about Elly’s life and her family and the identity of the real Agent Argylle, they were often followed by big exposition dumps to make it make sense. The central action plot is also totally empty, with Elly and Aidan having to find one generic MacGuffin and then the next. I couldn’t tell if this was a deliberate send-up of spy films or not.
I know Vaughn is capable of making good action sequences thanks to the aforementioned Kick-Ass and Kingsman: The Secret Service. With Argylle, there were some good ideas (even if they were very silly) but they were often poorly executed, with really dodgy CGI, apparent green screen work and obvious switching between stunt doubles and actors (particularly with Howard). They also felt like ideas that were discarded from Kingsman and repurposed here. I usually love Vaughn pairing action with incongruous songs but his schtick didn’t work this time around. Using Now and Then by the Beatles was certainly a peculiar choice!
Argylle has an insanely stacked cast that features famous faces including Samuel L. Jackson and Sofia Boutella (returning Vaughn collaborators), Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose and John Cena. My favourite was Howard, who really sells the different facets of her character and keeps Elly as human as possible, even with a shoddy script. Rockwell and Cranston are also highlights, adding genuine amusement throughout.
Vaughn clearly has big plans for Argylle’s future so it’s a shame he didn’t lay the foundation properly with this first instalment.
In cinemas from Thursday 1st February