Argylle Not Funny Enough to be This Dumb
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
There are all kinds of spy movies. Some are cerebral, others are pure action, some are fun, others are comedies or parodies. Argylle originates from the Kingsman movie franchise, one that leans into the fun action, and a fair number of jokes. It attempts to do the same with a bunch of new characters in what turns out to be more of a date night movie.
Director and writer Matthew Vaughn decided to make a spinoff of Kingsman with an all-star cast and a cat in a backpack. It centers on a novelist whose books are getting the attention of a sinister intelligence organization, called the division. The protagonist Elly Conway is a near middle-aged single woman with zero intelligence or national security background. She is thrown into a world of assassins, high-tech gear, mind control, and extensive international air travel despite her fear flying.
Get it? She is terrified of flying but needs to fly all over the world to stay alive. Isn’t that funny? No?
Aryglle comes up short in many ways. The action, the jokes, and story just aren’t good enough to capture an audience for its stupid long runtime. You are not meant to take the movie seriously. That much is clear, but it is often hard to know when you are supposed to laugh.
Source: IMDB.com
Before we get into the movie, the misleading trailers started everything on the wrong foot. The trailers heavily feature Henry Cavill and Dua Lipa, with a sexy dance scene that turns deadly. This scene is just the enactment of a scene from one of Elly’s novels, nothing more. Henry Cavill is in the movie only as a book character or a hallucination of Elly’s. His total screen time is 15 minutes at the most. Dua Lipa is in the film even less. John Cena also gets little screen time, so don’t get your hopes up.
The producers must have felt adding the star power to the supporting cast would somehow elevate the whole movie and distract away from the awful script. It didn’t. John Cena, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Samuel L. Jackson, and Sophia Boutella weren’t enough.
It is disappointing we are still here. It is 2024, and filmmakers continue to neglect writing and basic storytelling in favor of cheap gimmicks.
Sam Rockwell delivers most of the real comedy while the rest of the characters and their jokes fall flat. Both Howard and Rockwell are solid otherwise, with Rockwell’s character Aidan helping Elly through the deadly world of real espionage.
Bryan Cranston and Catherine O’Hara play Elly’s parents and are closely involved in her life, still coddling their daughter into middle age. There are not-so-subtle hints of a woman who has already hit the wall, yet Elly is a successful author and has no real obstacles in her way to seeking out a more exciting life. Instead, she stays home with her cat and bottle of wine.
Some stereotypes are career-endlingly offensive, but Hollywood (and most of the audience) seems to be just fine with others.
The plot and action get steadily more ridiculous as the movie progresses. Rockwell’s character Aidan is shot through the chest yet survives and recovers to fight on. A hallway gunfight with psychedelic smoke effects combined with a romantic dance number made the audience in my theater cringe. They were laughing at the movie, not with it. Another scene has Elly skating on knives pushed into the soles her boots. Somehow she manages to ice skate over an oil covered floor with the precision of a figure skater.
Screenshot from YouTube Trailer
Bryce Dallas Howard is a talented actress and director, but she is not an action star. Elly Conway was more plausible and likable as a fish-out-of-water novelist. When the movie reveals she is a deadly spy with amnesia, it falls apart.
An additional problem is the incredibly low grade CGI used, especially the cat. For a movie that is not intended to be taken seriously, it is a bridge too far to skimp on the visual effects as well. the oil skating scene is particularly difficult to watch.
The movie also suffers from the same problem as so many others in recent years: runtime. It is 2 hours and 19 minutes long. That is far too long for a silly date night action film. This movie sorely needed a harsh edit down to 90 minutes…100 at the most.
To add further disappointment, this film was supposedly completed at the tale end of the pandemic, meaning it is a COVID-era film being released in 2024! Hollywood should be past releasing these films. Why are we still enduring this almost three years later?
Argylle needed a better script, better jokes, a shorter runtime, and a less bloated cast. Bryce Dallas Howard may have had a chance at being a credible action hero had she put a lot more work into her physique. Not all action stars look like Dwayne Johnson or Chris Evans, but the hero needs to at least look like they can physically do what we see on screen. Choreography, CGI, and stuntmen can only do so much.
Somehow, movies are getting worse. I did not think that was possible after an abysmal ‘22 and ‘23. Like other box office bombs, the producers behind this movie should have known better. When will this dark age of film be over?