If there ever was a case of a trailer being better than a film, Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle would have grabbed the top spot. If you are signing up for Argylle because of Henry Cavill, if you are signing up for the cat Alfie, if you are signing up for the joyous ridiculousness of Vaughn’s spy movies, don’t. The film delivers very little on any of the above.
Argylle opens with a very handsome, very suave Henry Cavill in a green velvet Nehru jacket and square hair, dancing with Dua Lipa, followed by a ridiculous chase sequence through the streets of Greece. Only it turns out that Cavill’s Argylle isn’t real. In fact, he is a character in spy books being written by Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard). And he only shows up, sometimes, in her imagination.
The real-life spy is Sam Rockwell’s Aidan, who is the opposite of well-dressed and suave, and it seems he needs Elly to finish her fifth spy book to solve a problem in reality, something that is very close to the plots of Elly’s novels. An exciting premise, full of promise of a fun, action-packed romp. Unfortunately, the film gets so caught up in its own smartness that it soon becomes difficult to remember which way is up with the ridiculous double and triple crosses.
Argylle is mad, like you would expect from the maker of the Kingsman films, but it is absolutely unfunny and totally lacks the joy that made Vaughn’s earlier films such a treat. And there is enough ridiculousness to make it too much. A knife skating action bonanza on crude oil?! Just too much. The bad CGI makes all of it that much worse. Also the villain, played by Bryan Cranston, seems to have all the power in the world but we never find out who he really is or why he has access to that kind of power.
The film also squanders all the big names that pop up through the films, starting, of course, with Cavill. I mean Cavill in a James Bond-ish role doing straight-faced comedy sounds like an absolute winner but all he gets to do is be (handsomely) ridiculous and that too for very little time. Also wasted are John Cena, who also plays a character in Elly’s books, Dua Lipa (not sure if the wooden presence was called for or an accident), Catherine O Hara and Samuel L. Jackson.
But none of the above hurts more than the absolute waste of Alfie the cat. The trailer made it seem like he was central to the plot. Well, he isn’t. In fact he is so incidental that it makes you wonder why he is even wasting his felinity on this film. Well, he does play a role in bringing the big baddie down, but that’s too little too late.
A second Argylle movie in the making is certainly not news to be excited about given how unexciting this one turned out to be.
