Argylle

 

Score:  C-/D+

Directed by

Starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Henry Cavill

Running time: 139 minutes

Rated PG-13

Long Story Short:  Argylle is the latest from acclaimed action fantasy director Matthew Vaughn, but it lands with a thud.  Ignore the trailers - this is simply a bewildering yet boring adventure led by two unappealing characters.  It seems like it's written by AI, smashing all the successful genre movies it can into one, with absolutely no original or interesting things to say.  Avoid, both at theaters and at home on streaming.

Elly (Howard) is an international best-selling author, releasing tense spy thrillers that captivate her readers.  As she struggles to finish her current series of novels starring agent Argylle (Cavill), Elly is attacked on a train.  Fortunately, a real-life - if much scruffier than Argylle - agent named Aidan (Rockwell) comes to her rescue.  Aidan tells her that as entertaining as her writing may be, it also is surprisingly accurate about actual events - and the bad guys want her information.  So the two go on the run together across the world, and Elly finds that there is much more to herself - not just her writing - than she realizes.

Argylle is one of the most derivative, poorly written and performed movies I've seen in awhile; it has a small amount of entertainment value, but that is far overshadowed by its poor quality and ridiculous length.  Matthew Vaughn has made some of my favorite recent-ish action movies (Kick-Ass, Kingsman, X-Men First Class) and this seemed to be in the same mold.  Well, the first warning sign is that the trailers, which emphasize a glamorous if silly spy world, are very misleading.  Instead, we follow two dull, annoying characters in Howard's Elly and Rockwell's Aidan around the world.  There are so many "twists" that their changing relationship dynamics make your head spin, from one stereotype to the next.  The actors are given terrible lines, but they also do nothing to elevate the material.  I know Rockwell can do well, but he clearly phones this in; I've never seen a great performance from Howard (not that she hasn't done one) so I'm unsure if she was not well cast or just not good.  The other good actors (Cranston, Jackson, O'Hara) are also clearly in this for the pay checks.  The plot is completely incomprehensible (I gave up after probably ten minutes), and the style is just a mash up of contemporary "heightened" action cliches - some of which Vaughn self-plagiarizes.  The action is also dull and derivative, and falls to ludicrous lows in the finale.  What can I say that's good?  Well, the cat Elly drags around is occasionally amusing - it's one thing in the movie that approaches clever or likable.

***

After some excellent Oscar-level drama in January, I was ready to dig back in to blockbuster action.  With Vaughn directing and some stylish trailers, Argylle looked like a great way to kick off 2024's movie season.  The result, unfortunately, was an utter disaster.  The one thing about it that heartens me is that, even though it was produced by one of the Big Tech companies - Apple - they still released it in theaters rather than just for streaming.  This is not a good movie to see anywhere, of course, but I'm nervous that as Big Tech takes over more film production, they (especially Netflix) are moving away from theaters.  Beyond that, part of my negative reaction to the movie may be that I'm just getting tired of the genre - though I still really enjoy good examples of it, like last year's John Wick 4.  Oh, well.  Considering that there is only one new Marvel superhero movie coming out this year, I think I will look for more variety in my theater-goings than usual.  Hopefully the next one I see is a lot better than Argylle, whatever the genre!

* By https://www.cinematerial.com/movies/argylle-i15009428/p/laqk5lhx, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71214151