Movie Review: Spy Caper ‘Argylle So Bad Its Baffling
One question has been troubling moviegoers for months: Who is the real Agent Argyle? That's the question Samuel L. Jackson asks in the trailer for Matthew Vaughn's spy comedy Argyle, though the clip has more pressing questions: Who thought Henry Cavill's flat cap was a good idea? ". idea?" and "Why do we spell Argyle with two L's?"
Unfortunately, these latter questions remain a mystery, but the film tackles the former by exploring the complex personality of the real-life Agent Argyll in an excruciating 2 hours and 19 minutes. This is truly remarkable: Argyle has deep structural problems at a fundamental level, but it also fails to direct from the top down, resulting in one of the worst and most expensive films ever made. Honestly, this is interesting and should be studied in the lab.
Unfortunately, this review will suffice. The good news is that amidst all the green screen digital chaos, Argyle has some bright spots. First, the film has an interesting premise: shy, anxious spy writer Ellie Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard) becomes involved in a real-world spy conspiracy and turns out to be very good at it. . . As if Jason Bourne was Catwoman or Sandra Bullock's Lost City vehicle was less fun. Triangulate your expectations closely, then lower them further.
It's also nice to see Sam Rockwell back on screen as Sam Rockwell (dancing, casually charming, and occupying the emotional center of this stuffy train wreck). Rockwell plays Aidan, a real, not fictional, spy who makes a film on the train on the way to Ellie's parents' house. He says wildly popular spy novels featuring the adventures of Agent Argyll (the aforementioned Henry Cavill) are eerily foreshadowing of real-life espionage events.
Aidan battles the evil Organization Division to capture Eli. Both want to know the final chapter of their story and the location of the hacker's microchip. What's in a microchip? Regardless, what matters is Ellie learning to overcome her fear of flying, her unsettling attachment to Alfie, the cat she carries around in her backpack, realizing her own power, and of course, dancing with Sam Rockwell. A hacker is just a MacGuffin.
And now there's too much bad news. Jason Fox's script is extremely repetitive and detailed in terms of exposition and themes, and Vaughn doesn't bother with show-talk-visual storytelling, reserving all of his comic work for the very odd events. And of course the funny sequences, if you've seen Kingsman, it's a movie but with lots of geysers of blood. As "Argyle" is rated PG-13, it's all chill, tame and young.
"But it's great!" You might argue, "That must be great!" But half the movie is real: we can forgive the sanity-defying scenes of Henry Cavill and pop star Dua Lipa crashing cars in a Greek mountain town, because that's what Ellen's page is all about. You can see where they're going when Cavill's Argyle starts muttering about Ellie's writer's block.
But everything else in the "real world" needs to seem more real, and nothing in this movie seems grounded. Everyone appears in this movie (Bryan Cranston, Jackson, Ariana DeBose, Kathryn O'Hara, John Cena, Richard E. Grant), but no one is in this movie. With the exception of Howard and Rockwell, each actor averages five minutes of screen time, usually walking around a large room with a few extras (the film was shot in June 2021 and shows).
Argyle looks flimsy and cheap, as does the hideous gold dress poor Howard is forced to wear in the third act of the film (this film commits heinous crimes against costume and hair design), so how does it feel? The script and acting do not convey any emotional truth other than the great effort Rockwell put into the film. He puts it on his back and carries it, bringing humor, honesty and genuine emotion to his performance, even as Howard spins it around a mundane hallway full of colorful smoke. But one man can't do it alone, and despite the charismatic presence of Argyle Rockwell, he fails.
Vaughn leaves us with the vague threat of Agent Argyll returning in one form or another, but if they want this to be worth watching, they need to turn the page, because this ride is definitely not worth it.
